A celebration of Barbara’s life will be held at 11:00 a.m., Saturday, February 24, 2018, at Hanes Lineberry North Elm Chapel, 515 North Elm Street. The family will receive friends following the service.
Barbara was born December 12, 1936, in Oklahoma City, OK, daughter to the late Harry C. and Bernice E. Puller. She grew up in and around Little Rock, Arkansas, and attended the university there. In 1958, she married the love of her life, Edwin Richard Smith, Jr., whom she met while he was serving at the Air Force Base outside Little Rock. Their first years together saw them move frequently, due to his work, across the state of New York, then to New Jersey and Texas, until finally they were able to settle permanently in Greensboro, North Carolina in 1971.
The two dominant threads in Barbara’s life were a love of animals & nature, and her generosity in helping others. In rural Arkansas she rode her beloved horse, and her childhood home included flying squirrels, a goat, pigeons, dogs, ducks, rabbits, pheasants, cats, chickens, and the occasional snake. She had dogs and/or cats all her married and widowed life (and a ferret), virtually all strays she gave a loving home to, and she donated her time and money to improving the lives of these animals in Greensboro. She and her husband traveled to rural Africa, Alaska, and (in their 60's) deep into the backcountry of Montana & Wyoming on horseback. She and her husband owned beautiful land in rural Virginia that, through a conservation easement, she ensured would never be developed. Then she gave the land away to those who she knew would take care of it, after she couldn’t do it herself. In suburban Greensboro she was a beekeeper, and she created and maintained a beautiful landscape of flowers, natural areas, and vegetable garden.
Barbara was someone who friends and family could always count on when they most needed her time and her help. She also generously donated both time and resources to helping people through charities inside and outside of Greensboro. From an early age, despite growing up in a very racially divided area and time, Barbara always understood and acted on the premise that all people are indeed equally deserving of dignity, respect, kindness, and opportunity.
Whether becoming very skilled at tennis (while her knees allowed), investigating alternative healing, doggedly pursuing the perfect classical music sound system, or getting down in the trenches to fight the construction of a pipeline that threatened sensitive natural areas and people's homesteads, Barbara took her pursuits seriously and gave her whole self to them.
In addition to her parents, Mrs. Smith was preceded in death by her husband, Edwin Richard “Dick” Smith, Jr. and her brother, Brian Thomas Puller. She is survived by her sons, Edwin Richard “Rick” Smith III (Kim Merrick) of Cincinnati, OH and Brian C. Smith of Austin, TX; brother, Jerry C. Puller of Little Rock, AR, and step-grandson, Wesley Byrge of Cincinnati, OH.
The family expresses their deepest gratitude to all of the marvelous women who gave Barbara so much emotional and spiritual support, and who so very lovingly cared for her over the past five years when she couldn’t do things for herself anymore. It is because of them that this special woman could spend her last years in her own home, and because of them that she had a very great measure of satisfaction in life despite her condition.
In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions in Barbara’s memory may be made to the SPCA of Greensboro, 3163 Hines Chapel Road, Greensboro, NC 27405.
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