Fabia Rue Smith

Fabia Rue Jones Smith passed away April 6, 2026. She was born on June 6, 1932 in Smith County, Mississippi to Alonzo Joseph Jones and Mellie Ida Sullivan. She attended Clarke Memorial College and Mississippi College.

After college, she served as secretary for the First Baptist Church of Jackson, where she met a dashing, young Navy seaman named Charles R. Smith. When he returned from a tour of duty in the Korean War, they married in 1953 at the church where they first met.

For two decades, Fabia was very active in the Jackson community, serving in multiple leadership roles with the Jackson Symphony League and the Community Children’s Theatre. In 1969, she led efforts to launch what is now known as the Pepsi Pops, the popular waterfront concert benefiting the Symphony League.

They welcomed their beloved son, Paul Rayford in 1969.

A lifelong teacher, Fabia taught at the Mississippi School for the Blind in the 1960s and 1970s.

Together with her husband, Fabia wrote “Southern Words and Sayings” in the late 1970s. This popular book celebrated the witticisms of the south and sold over 100,000 copies.

In the late 1970s, Fabia and her family moved to Austin, where she taught visually impaired students in Round Rock, Texas. When she and her husband retired in the late 1990s, they returned to their roots, settling in Madison, MS.

She was an avid gardener and devoted Christian. After her husband passed in 2009, she enjoyed traveling to Europe and continued to teach visually impaired students in the Pearl School District until 2015.

A son, Paul Rayford Smith, and his wife Emily comprise her immediate family.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Madison Methodist Church.

Funeral services will be held at 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, April 9, 2026 at Parkway Funeral Home at 1161 Highland Colony Parkway, Ridgeland, MS. A graveside ceremony will be held at 12:30 p.m. at Sardis Baptist Church, which is between the communities of White Oak and Morton. Visitation will be held at the funeral home from 9:30 – 10:30 a.m. on Thursday.