Mrs. Russell D. (Margarita) Smith

Margarita Maria (Armbruster) Smith, 89, died at her home in Longmont, Colorado on December 4, 2014. Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina onAugust 20, 1925, Mrs. Smith was the eldest child and only daughter of Lutheran missionaries the Reverend John Miller Matthias and MargaretBruce (Stanbarger) Armbruster.Mrs. Smith received her education in Argentina, the United States, and Germany, being perfectly trilingual at an early age. After having graduated as valedictorian from the Lincoln School in Buenos Aires in 1942, she took post-secondary courses and thereafter passed the Cambridge Entrance Examinations, which enabled her to enter any university in the world. However, World War II made travel dangerous, and she was forced to delay her move to her chosen university. In 1944, she was finally allowed to make the journey from Argentina to the States. She boarded a clearly marked Argentine ship, which took the safer yet longer route through the Straits of Magellan in order to avoid U-boat activity in the Atlantic. Once in the States, Mrs. Smith attended Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio for two years and went on to graduate summa cum laude from Oklahoma A&M (Oklahoma State University) with B.A. and M.A. degrees. During her undergraduate and post-graduate work, she received numerous unsolicited scholarships and membership in many honorary societies.On January 2, 1952, she married Russell Dean Smith of Wakita, Oklahoma.Mr. Smith's work with oil companies led the couple to live in Caracas,Venezuela; Paris, France; Las Palmas, the Canary Islands; Quito, Ecuador; Jakarta, Indonesia; Singapore, and finally Longmont, Colorado. Besides living in nine different countries, she visited and vacationed in over one hundred more. Her claim to fame, according to her husband, should have been the fact that she circumnavigated the world in both directions. Long before the age of commercial flights, her first international trip was taken via steamer at the age of five months. By the age of eighteen, she had spent over a year of her life on the high seas. One of her more memorable trips was taken on the S.S. Cap Arcona. At the time (January, 1933), the ship was the second largest in the world. It was a luxury liner, but hidden somewhere in the holds of the ship was a live cow, kept specially so that Mrs. Smith's five-week-old younger brother could have fresh milk during the voyage. One of her more hair-raising travel experiences occurred when the small airplane she was travelling in foundered into a bomb hole in Babo, Papua New Guinea, which at that time was in the middle of cannibal country. During her time abroad, she had a number of unique experiences. She was privileged to see the sudden pro-American feelings displayed by Parisians at the time of President Kennedy's assassination. At the time, she even received sincere condolences from all she encountered, as though she had been a member of the Kennedy family. Too, she experienced the stunned shock of all personnel at the Canary Islands Hotel where she was staying at the time Jacqueline Kennedy married Aristotle Onassis. This happened to be the hotel where Ari had spent vacations with Madame Maria Callas.She witnessed famous orators during her lifetime. As a child in 1932 and 1933, she saw and heard Adolph Hitler when he speechified in Nuremberg, Germany, while his uniformed followers proudly goose-stepped away. She also saw President Franklin Delano Roosevelt when he visited Argentina in 1936, John F. Kennedy when he went to Venezuela in the early 1960s, and President Nixon when he spoke to the students at Oklahoma State University during his presidency.During her career, Mrs. Smith taught Spanish at Oklahoma A&M. She worked as translator and Finance Manager for the American International Underwriters in Dallas, Texas. She also served as Bilingual Executive Secretary to the Managing Director of Pan American Airways in Caracas, Venezuela.Mrs. Smith was a member of First Evangelical Lutheran Church in Longmont.During her lifetime, she also taught in Sunday Schools and Daily Vacation Bible Schools and sang in church and other choirs. She was an avid bridge player, opera lover (her favorite being Madame Butterfly), and one of the founding members of the Interfaith Quilters of Longmont, which supports various local charities.She was preceded in death by her husband on October 27, 2007. She will be buried by his side in the Ryssby Cemetery in Longmont. She was also preceded by her parents and brother, John A. Armbruster.Mrs. Smith is survived by her brothers Owen R. Armbruster of Abilene, Texas and James P. Armbruster of Arlington, Virginia as well as numerous nieces, nephews and close friends.Funeral Services will take place at 1:00 pm on Tuesday, December 9, 2014 at Ryssby Church, 9000 N. 63rd St. in Longmont; Pastor Steve Berke of First Evangelical Lutheran Church will officiate. A reception will be held at First Evangelical Lutheran Church starting at approximately 2:30 pm. Memorial contributions may be made to a charity of the donor's choice. Visit www.ahlbergfuneralchapel.com to share condolences.