Wasco-Wheeler-Gilliam County OR Archives Obituaries.....Smith, LoRita Hawes November 8, 2003
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Ila Wakley iwakley@msn.com March 22, 2006, 10:51 pm

The Dalles Chronicle, November 12, 2003
    Retired The Dalles teacher and Mid-Columbia Senior Center founder LoRita 
Hawes Smith, 96, died at a care facility in Mountain View, Calif., on 
Saturday, Nov. 8, 2003. 
     She was born in 1907 on a ranch near Spray, the oldest of four children 
to Amos and Nora (Brown) Hawes. 
     In 1921, the family moved to Spray, where she graduated from Spray High 
School in 1925. During those years she loved swimming, ice skating on the John 
Day River, and playing the piano at community dances.
     She studied for two years at the Oregon Normal School at Monmouth. She 
graduated in 1927 with a teaching credential, and began her 38-year teaching 
career in a rural school at Badger in Gilliam County. She taught all eight 
grades including some future nephews, and a niece, after marrying her husband.
     She became more of a community activist after retirement. Starting in 
1980, she worked diligently with others to create the Mid Columbia Senior 
Center, which was dedicated in 1986. 
     Indeed, she discovered the future site for the facility, and proposed its 
name.
     Survivors include her son, Clarence Wilbur Smith and his wife, Wanda, 
Ketchikan, Alaska, and Sun City, Ariz.; daughter, Norma Patterson and her 
husband, Don, Los Altos, Calif.; grandchildren, Kelly Patterson Merkley and 
her husband, Brent, Mountain View, Calif.; Tracy Patterson Borton, Mather, 
Calif.; great-grandchildren, Ryan and Rachel Borton; sister, Wilda Rattray, 
Condon, and many nieces and nephews. She was preceded in death in 1985 by her 
husband, Clarence Morris Smith to whom she was married for 57 years, a 
brother, Oden Hawes and a sister, Rena Dickinson.
     Funeral services will be held at United Church of Christ Congregational 
on Saturday, Nov. 15, at 11 a.m. with Rev. Karl J. Vercouteren officiating. 
Entombment will follow at The Dalles Odd Fellows Mausoleum. A celebration of 
life luncheon will follow in the Columbia Room at The Dalles Senior Center. 
Spencer, Libby and Powell Funeral Home is in care of arrangements.
Memorials may be made to Meals on Wheels, 1112 W. 9th St., The Dalles, OR 
97058.


Additional Comments:
Written permission to reprint given by The Dalles Chronicle, The Dalles, 
Oregon, Dan Spatz, Editor (e-mail dated 3/7/2006).


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