Ruth "Bootsie" Smith wanted to be clear about her geographical alliances. If you asked where she was from, the answer wasn't an easy one, but it did make people smile.
“She’d say, ‘I am Georgia born, Tar Heel bred, and when I die, I'll be Atlanta dead,’” said Helen Smith Glover, a daughter who lives in Atlanta. “She did love North Carolina, and she spent a lot of time there growing up.”
Mrs. Smith was born in College Park, but spent a good deal of her youth in North Carolina. Her parents moved the family back to the Atlanta area just before she finished high school, but she’d fallen in love with North Carolina. After high school, Mrs. Smith went right back to attend the women’s college at the University of North Carolina.
There were only a few things that she loved more than North Carolina, and in that number was her church and her family. Mrs. Smith was the cornerstone of the family, said George E. Norman III, a nephew who lives in Seven Lakes, N.C.
“She enjoyed living life,” he said. “She always cared about so many people and she loved people. She was a real student of people, I think.”
Ruth Webb Smith, called "Bootsie" by many, of Vinings, died Thursday at her residence of a suspected heart attack. She was 85. Her body was cremated and a memorial service is planned for Wednesday at 2 p.m. at St. Luke's Episcopal Church, Atlanta. Advantage Funeral Home & Cremation Services was in charge.
After graduating with the class of 1947, Mrs. Smith became a social worker. She also worked as a camp counselor when the opportunity arose, her daughter said. She married Charles Homer Smith in 1950 and the couple eventually had two daughters. The Smiths were married for 56 years when Mr. Smith died in 2006.
Once her daughters were born, Mrs. Smith put her skills to use at home and in her community. She became active in a number of civic and church organizations, her daughter said.
“She was a handful and she was always busy,” Mrs. Glover said, with a laugh.
Mrs. Smith had her own special way of doing things, said Peter Glover, her son-in-law. The first thing you should know, he said, is that she was a kisser. The second thing you should know, don’t cross her.
“She’d set you straight in a New York minute,” he said, with a laugh. “And to this day, I wish to the heavens I’d never said anything. But once I thought she was making something up, and that’s what I told her.”
Mrs. Smith was minding her own business, telling her only grandson, Preston Glover, a story about earning the Curved Bar Award, the highest award a Girl Scout could achieve between 1940 and 1963. Well, that name just didn't sound right to Preston’s dad, who was a Boy Scout in his youth, so he told his mother-in-law he didn't believe her.
“Then I started getting these letters in the mail,” Peter Glover said, still laughing. “She actually told on me to the Girl Scouts. And they wrote me letters, explaining how the name of their highest award has changed over the years. I couldn't believe all of these ladies were writing me letters about this award, but I believed her after that.”
Mrs. Webb is also survived by a second daughter, Jane Webb Smith of Baltimore; and a niece, Lane Norman Harris of Bozeman, Mont.
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