Harry Smith was a man of many nicknames, but his loving spirit and calm demeanor never changed. Even as his health declined, he remained upbeat and refused to let anyone feel sorry for him, friends and family said.
“I’d ask him how he was doing, and he’d answer that he was ‘Fine!’,” said Dr. Tobe Johnson, drawing out the last three letters of the word. “I never could get him to budge from that. He was unwilling to impose whatever inner problems he had on anyone else.”
Harry Bernard Smith, of Atlanta, died Friday at Emory Crawford Long Hospital from complications of several ailments. He was 85.
A funeral is planned for 1 p.m. Thursday at Allen Temple A.M.E. Church, Atlanta. Entombment will follow at Lincoln Cemetery. Hines Home of Funerals is in charge of arrangements.
Mr. Smith was born and raised in Pratt City, an industrial suburb of Birmingham. If you knew him from back then, you called him “H.B.” said Dr. Johnson, who grew up in the same community.
Mr. Smith was active in sports through much of his youth and early adulthood. He played two sports at Parker High School, in Birmingham, where he was captain of the track and football teams, Dr. Johnson said. After he graduated from high school, he enrolled in Morehouse College, where he joined the football team.
“Then at Morehouse, they called him Little Smitty, and that’s compared to Big Smitty,” Dr. Johnson said. “And the difference between them was, Big Smitty was, oh 6-foot-4 and Harry was 5-foot-8 or 9.”
While in college he also earned the nickname of “Jitters,” because he had a stutter-step on the football field, where he was a star player.
“It was some mighty fancy footwork,” Dr. Johnson said, with a laugh. “And it was quite effective.”
After he graduated from Morehouse, with a degree in business administration, most folks called Mr. Smith by his first or last name, or simply Smitty. He was very competitive in sports, but that attitude did not carry over into his day-to-day activities, Dr. Johnson said.
During his professional life, he was a financial consultant, worked at Lockheed Aircraft and retired from the U.S. Post Office, said Constance Porter Smith, his wife of 20 years.
“Once he retired we enjoyed our years together,” she said. “He was such a loving, compassionate and giving man.”
Though he didn’t play many sports in his senior years, he did stay active. One of his favorite activities was working with his fraternity, Omega Psi Phi. He enjoyed working with the group and shuttling older fraternity brothers to and from meetings and activities.
Dr. Johnson said his friend was one of the easiest people to get along with, a sentiment echoed by Mrs. Smith.
“He would do just about anything he could for anybody,” his wife said.
Mr. Smith is also survived by five children from a previous marriage, Harry Jackson of Birmingham, Eileen S. Banks of Atlanta, Joseph B. Smith of Atlanta, Beverly S. Simpson of Chattanooga, Tenn., and Kimberly Smith of Atlanta; six grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.
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