Dynamite in a small package.
That’s how several people referred to Claire Smith, who was around 5 feet 1 inch tall but swore she was taller.
“She was always 90 miles an hour,” said her son, Daniel Davis Smith of Roswell. “She always had a full schedule.”
A full schedule, indeed, as she had been everything from a college and high school music teacher to a high-level Girl Scout volunteer, collecting 65 years of dedicated service with the organization, said longtime friend, Kathy Ray.
“She was a troop leader,” she said. “Then that led to her becoming involved as a high-level volunteer. She’s been a great fundraiser for us and a fund giver.”
Claire Davis Smith of Atlanta died May 16 from natural causes at Lenbrook assisted living facility in Buckhead. She was 94.
Her funeral is scheduled for 11 a.m. Saturday at H.M. Patterson & Son Arlington Chapel, which is handling the arrangements. Interment will immediately follow at Arlington Memorial Park in Sandy Springs.
Smith’s musical career began when she majored in music at Shorter College, from which she graduated in the early 1940s. For the next year, she taught music at Shorter before moving back to her hometown of Moultrie. It was there that she met and married her first husband, John Franklin “Jack” Thompson, a pilot in the Air National Guard who was stationed in Florida and Texas.
During this time, Smith accepted a scholarship to The Julliard School, where she studied voice for two years before moving back to Atlanta in the mid-40s. When her husband was killed in action in Korea, Smith began teaching music at Northside High School, where she stayed for two years until her marriage to her second husband, John Lucian “Luke” Smith, in 1953.
John Smith’s career with Coca-Cola Co. took the couple to New Hampshire and Houston before returning them to Atlanta in the 1970s. That is when Claire Smith began leading Troop 68 and became heavily involved with the Girl Scouts, creating and directing the Atlanta Girl Scout Chorus.
Smith also spent a few years traveling to promote the Girl Scout Piper Program, for which she performed as a member of a trio to recruit more girls to the organization, Daniel Smith said.
“She went to Europe with the Girl Scouts and led singing in Switzerland,” he said. “They performed for close to 3,000 girls in a stadium in Colorado once. It was her passion.”
As a result of her dedication to the organization, Smith was awarded the Thanks Badge and the Thanks Badge II, and was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Girl Scout’s 100th anniversary celebration in 2012.
In addition, Claire Smith was also an avid board member of the Boys and Girls Club, served as president of the Shepherd Center auxiliary, and was always giving of her time and talents, said longtime friend, Emory Schwall.
“She had a full life and a great life,” he said. “She had great talent, and was always very generous with it.”
In addition to her son, Smith is survived by a daughter, Susan Peyton Smith of Sandy Springs; a brother, G. Grady Davis of Hideaway, Texas; and four grandchildren.
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