Cynthia D’Ann Smith was born on September 13, 1957 in Pasadena, TX to Monroe Ben Mewis and Verna Faye Hauck. Her father was a homebuilder so they lived in several different beautiful houses that he built across south Texas while she grew up. She graduated from La Porte High School in 1975 before attending Sam Houston State University to study Education. She later graduated Sam Houston Summa Cum Laude and went on to have a very fruitful and enjoyable teaching career. She began as a first grade teacher and later taught reading intervention at Sheldon Elementary for 31 years before retiring. Still to this day she could sing you a fun phonetic alphabet song that she used to teach countless children to read, including her two girls.
In 1985, she met the love of her life, Chuck Smith, who she married on May 31, 1986. According to her she knew he was it after the first couple dates, but Chuck took over a year to actually propose. Go figure. They had two girls, Emily Alyse and Amy Catherine, who they raised together in their Pasadena home. They were married for a wonderful 25 years before Chuck passed away. Many people don’t know how she went on, but she did.
She was an active member at Clearpoint Church in Pasadena, TX for many years where she volunteered as a greeter on many a Sunday morning. Matthew 22: 37-38 says, “The Lord replied, ‘Love the Lord God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment.’ “ and boy did she LOVE God. It showed in the way she loved her husband, her girls, her family, her friends and even strangers.
Cindy was a woman who always had a smile on her face, bent over backwards for anyone who needed something and didn’t know a stranger. She had a caring and loving nature, which anyone who encountered her would quickly agree with. After speaking with anyone for five minutes she knew their whole life story - Why? She genuinely cared and wanted to get to know people. When she became “Grammy” in 2017 she said her life became better than she ever knew it could. She loved all her grandchildren fiercely and it showed.
Nothing with her was empty. If she offered to make you dinner, take care of your puppies or take you to lunch, she meant it and followed through. She did everything with joy and a smile. That’s not to say she wasn’t often exhausted, but for her it was well worth it. She knew, perhaps subconsciously that her special gift was to take care of people, and that she did well.
She is greatly missed and will be for as long as people who know her are still alive, but we can rest in the Hope of the Resurrection.
She is preceded in death by her mother and father, Monroe Ben Mewis and Verna Faya Hauck, and her husband, Charles Patton Smith. She is survived by her daughters: Emily Alyse Montellano, husband Stephen and their daughter Adaline Alyse; and Amy Catherine Richard, husband Kevin and their two boys Charles Everette and James William; and her younger sister Lisa Cannon, husband Dale and their children Ben and Ava.
