Rosa Lee Morris Smith, daughter of Lydia Phonetta Waterfield and William Edward Morris, granddaughter of Clarence Edward Morris and Elizabeth Barclay, was born December 28, 1908 in Knotts Island, North Carolina and passed away September 25, 1999 in the Roger Mills Memorial Hospital, Cheyenne, Oklahoma, at the age of 90 years, 8 months and 27 days.
Rosa was one of nine children.
Her paternal grandfather, Clarence Edward Morris, was a British Naval Officer shipwrecked in Currituk Sound, off the North Carolina coast. He died before she was born and she never knew any more of her ancestry other than a small picture on a glass of her grandfather, which she cherished as a keepsake. She often shared it with her children and others, experiences of her carefree years on Knotts Island, as they wondered together about her grandfather who had died.
In 1929 she married Roland McCoy Smith. They had two children, Ronald, Jr. and Dorothy Ann.
They moved to San Antonio, Texas in 1972 after thirty years as residents of Norfolk, Virginia.
She still had nieces and nephews in and around Norfolk, Chesapeake and Virginia Beach, Virginia.
In her later years, she wrote numerous poems for her loved ones. Several of them were worthy of publication...all of them reminiscent of her love for her family.
She was preceded in death by her husband, Roland; her son, Roland Jr.; and all of her brothers and sisters.
Her survivors include her daughter and son-in-law, Dorothy and Fred Robertson of Elk City, Oklahoma; her daughter-in-law, Alice Smith of San Antonio, Texas; five grandchildren, Shelley Mitchell Holman and husband, Vincent of Elk City, Oklahoma; Lisa Marie Daily of San Antonio, Texas; Mark Turner of Victoria, Texas; and Nancy Holland of San Antonio, Texas; four great grandchildren; and a host of other relatives and friends.