Blanche Smith

Blanche Smith, age 84 of Waco, passed away, Monday December 6, 2010, at a local nursing home. Funeral Services will be 1PM, Thursday, December 9, 2010 at Grace Gardens Funeral Home Chapel. Burial will follow at Prairie Hill Cemetery at 3PM. Visitation will be 6 to 8 pm, Wednesday December 8, 2010 at Grace Gardens Funeral Home Chapel.

Blanche was born October 1, 1926 in Prairie Hill Texas to Doss and Blanch Hardin. Blanche’s mother died at her birth and she was raised by her loving aunt and uncle Jewell and Durward Yarbrough. She lived in Monahans, Texas where her father worked for Gulf Oil and she began school there. They later moved to Prairie Hill where she graduated as Salutatorian at age sixteen. She then went to Ft. Worth where she worked and attended business school. After school she moved to Waco where she met and later married Raymond Smith in June of 1946. She went to work for Lester moving and storage and worked there over twenty years as office manager and bookkeeper. Later she worked at Baylor as a security monitor and retired from there in 1994. Her whole universe was her family. Her grandchildren say she was the best mema in the whole wide world. She will truly be missed but we know she is with her loved ones and one day we will all be together again.

Blanche was preceded in death by her parents, her husband Raymond, sisters Lorena, Johnie and Kitty; brothers Jap and Vernon and a granddaughter Tiffany Mathews.

She is survived by her four children, a son Raymond D. Smith and his wife Maureen, three daughters Delores Johnson and her husband Leslie, Denice Mathews and her husband Bill, Darlene Cale and her husband Jimmy; ten grandchildren Les Johnson, Chad Smith, Travis and Taylor Cale, Traci Honeycutt, Lindsey Parker, Lacey Sandhoff, Hayley Smith, Amanda and Paige Mathews; sister Jo Ann Hardin; sister in law Jewell Hardin; former daughter in law Betty Smith; special friend Christi Calhoun; eight great grandchildren Kimberly, Trey, Lance, Tatum, Bradley, Blake, Emily and Presley; two nieces Barbara, Ruth and Sharon and one nephew Joe.