Betty Florice Lewis Smith, 81, passed away Thursday, May 29, 2014, at Mountain View Health Care following a long battle with congestive heart failure and alzheimers.
She was born June 12, 1932, in Round Springs, daughter of Lotus Hugh Lewis and Willia Orphia Patterson. She and Howard Elmer Smith were married July 3, 1949.
She moved frequently with her family as a child. Her most cherished memories were of her time spent on Sinkin Creek in Dent County, where she was baptized.
She attended high school in Eminence and Summersville. In the late 1940s, her family moved to Oregon to work in the timber industry. At the age of 17, she began working for the U.S. Forest Service monitoring fires and the weather from a fire tower.
In her early years of marriage, she and her husband, Howard, lived in Oregon, Colorado and Missouri. They permanently relocated to Summersville in 1958. She was a secretary at Harmon Insurance Agency for 33 years.
She was accomplished in oil painting, ceramics, sewing and sketching. She also restored vintage dolls for customers nationwide. She enjoyed cooking, especially fried chicken and fudge, and gardening. She also loved to travel.
She was preceded in death by her parents and two sisters, Helen “Bernice” Newby and Maude “Rose Ann” Rubert.
Survivors include a daughter, Vivian Stilley of Houston; a son, Kennith Smith of Summersville; four grandchildren; two great-grandchildren; a brother, Douglas Lewis; and a sister, Stella “Norma Jean” Thompson.
Services were Sunday, June 1, at Bradford Funeral Home Chapel with the Rev. Steve Steelman officiating. Burial was in Antioch Cemetery.
