Sarah Joyce Smelley Odom, age 83, passed away in Winston-Salem, N.C., on Monday, January 27, 2020, after a lengthy illness. Named Sarah after her maternal grandmother and called Joyce by family, she was born June 20, 1936, in Tuscaloosa County to John C. and Clema Smelley, who predeceased her, as did her brother, John C. Smelley, Jr.
Joyce is remembered as smart, generous and a loving mother. She is survived by her devoted husband of 55 years, Dr. Robert E. Odom; children, Laura O. Ellington, Pamela O. Baker (Louis), Robert N. Odom and Anne C. Odom; grandchildren, Grayson and Sarah Ellington, Katherine and Christina Baker, Ashlyn and Jacob Fitzgerald; sisters, Annie Smelley, Nancy Brown (Jesse) and Jane Grubbs; and multiple nieces and nephews.
Joyce grew up in Northport and was a member of Northport Baptist Church where she taught children's Sunday school. She was a member of TCHS graduating class of 1954.
At a time when few women entered scientific and technical fields, Joyce began a career in the emerging field of aerospace, armed with bachelor degrees with double majors in Chemistry and Mathematics (1958) and a master's degree in math from the University of Alabama. She went to California to work for NASA on the Minuteman Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) as the responsible engineer for the first guided flight tape. She wrote two of the three countdown tests to enable Minuteman to exit the silo after three minutes. She later moved to Huntsville to work on the program for the Saturn booster that put the astronauts into orbit.
Her life-long passion was genealogy; she constantly garnered information from older relatives and library tomes. She authored a number of published books, including Smelley Families, First Families of Tuscaloosa, Nichols-Smallwood-Maddox, and First Families of Maryland in Charles County Neighborhoods.
The family will receive friends for visitation from 9:30-10:30 a.m. Saturday, February 1, 2020, at Sunset Funeral Home, 3802 Watermelon Road, Northport. Funeral services will be conducted at 10:30 a.m. in the Chapel, followed by entombment at Serenity Chapel Mausoleum at Sunset Memorial Park.
Contributions may be made to the Mt. Olive Cemetery Fund, 13303 Mt. Olive Road, Coker, AL 35452.
