Jacqueline Imboden Smith

Jacqueline Imboden Smith loved family, the church, the U. S. military and her country. But most of all she loved her husband, Lowell. Daughter of a career cavalry officer, she married Lt Lowell Smith of the Army Air Corps in San Antonio in 1944. She stood at his side through a military career than began with his leadership of American fighter aircraft against Germany, and ended with his leadership of the joint German/American Helios solar probe. It was a life of constant relocations but one centered on concepts of duty and loyalty to a great nation. Her son once asked, 'But where is our real home?' She answered, 'Our home is wherever our nation needs us to be, we are at home wherever American troops are needed.'

That spirit of service was anchored in a deep sense of family. Jacqueline Smith took great pride in tracing her family's origins back to the 11th century and forward through Confederate generals, Virginia's first governor, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and the very earliest German settlers of Texas. She was a Master Gardener who always insisted on using the Latin names for plants, a French chef who knew the name of every type of cheese in Europe, and a lover of animals both the wild and the tame. A traditional Episcopalian, her life was governed by the laws of God and love of the order and peace brought by the Church. She began and ended each day with prayer and together with her husband had read and reread the entire bible daily throughout their marriage. She most enjoyed the St. Paul Epistles, but she struggled with Leviticus.

In a life of travel she had visited all 50 states and virtually every nation of Europe, Asia, Latin American and Africa. She loved the coast of Maine, the hills of Virginia, and the gentle valleys of Pennsylvania. But in the end, her devotion to five generations of family life in the hill country of Texas brought her home.

She is survived by two children, Marschall Smith of Woodstock, Illinois and Michelle Smith Stump of Los Alamos, New Mexico, five grandchildren and four great grandchildren. She was the closest friend of and greatly loved by her daughter-in-law, Debra Mitts Smith. Her life was a symbol of all that is good in America, and with her passing a great generation has ended for her family.

The family asks that in lieu of flowers, contributions be made to the Daughters of the American Revolution educational programs on patriotism or to the Utopia Animal Rescue Ranch located in Medina, Texas.