She was the daughter of Laura and William Smith, a laborer and part-time Baptist preacher (he was listed in the 1870 census as a "minister of the gospel," in Moulton, Lawrence County, Alabama). He died while his daughter was too young to remember him. By the time Bessie was nine, her mother and a brother had also died. Her older sister Viola took charge of caring for her siblings. Consequently, Bessie was unable to gain an education because her parents had died and her elder sister was taking care of her.