Nicholas James Smedley

The family will hold a small private service in the coming days. They very much appreciate all the expressions of love, support and condolences that have flooded in these last few days.

Nick's family shares these thoughts:

"We write this with broken hearts, hoping to find the words that capture the essence of Nick’s shining light. Charismatic, quick-witted, easy going and caring, Nick could talk to anyone of any age and make them feel special. He was extremely bright and had a particular love for history.

That love of history and adventure made him a treasure hunter at heart. He had a deep love for metal detecting for civil war artifacts and old coins, he spent many hours searching for rock crystals in the creek near our house and for old glass and pottery at the beach. Over the years, he built quite a collection. If you listened to him talk about finding places to metal detect, you would get a detailed history lesson of where the civil war encampments were in the area based on his studying historical maps. While we were walking the beach near Cape Lookout, he found a broken piece of Wedgewood China, with a perfect crest, and those markings dated it to the 1700’s. We spent hours talking about how it got there - likely a shipwreck - and his eyes lit up thinking of what else we might find.

Nick loved being outside. In his younger years we spent time camping and hiking as a family, and he cherished our time boating and fishing around Cape Lookout. He grew to be a very good fisherman. Inshore, offshore, fly fishing, spear fishing - he was good at all of it. And, he was always the guy that seemed to bring the good luck. Many of our most memorable fishing trips involved Nick. He caught the first sailfish on our boat. His first offshore trip with “the men” (when he was about 12) included us catching a marlin. He just brought the good luck with him and it seemed we were often along for the ride.

A large part of Nick’s life was the time we spent on Harkers Island where he developed close friends who became like family to us. On cold windy days there were Monopoly games that went on for hours, and much to the consternation of his sister and friends, Nick always seemed to win. Harkers Island was also a perfect fit for Nick’s love of both history and the outdoors. He loved the local traditions of boatbuilding and fishing, loved the connection of the area to WWII (many shipwrecks where we would fish), the civil war, and the early settling of the country following the Revolutionary war.

Nick was in Scouting as a teenager and earned his Eagle Scout badge. He had many great campouts, loved summer camp in the NC mountains, and was fortunate to get to go to Philmont in New Mexico and backpack over 100 miles in 11 days. He thought it was cool that we woke up one morning to snow - in August - but that happens when you are camping above the tree line at 10,000 ft.

Nick loved to cook, never used a recipe, and the food was always fantastic. From camping, he learned how to make something out of nothing, particularly if he had enough spices. Fitting with his treasure hunting tendencies, he loved to search for Morel mushrooms in the spring and when he found them, a great meal would always follow.

We were blessed to have a perfect few days with Nick just before he passed. We laughed and talked and enjoyed great times outside doing what he loved to do. He attempted to teach his mom to cast a fly rod (the best laughs), helped her land and then release a huge Red Drum, and helped a friend land the largest Wahoo ever caught on our boat. In those moments he was simply beautiful. We are left with the memories and we can love completely what we cannot completely understand."

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared below within "add a memory" for the Smedley Family.