Services for Edith Loraine Christy Smith, 97, of Ada, are 2:00 p.m. Monday at the Criswell Funeral Home Chapel, Floyd Kaiser and Bobby Johns will officiate. Burial will follow at Rosedale Cemetery.
Mrs. Smith died Thursday, January 10, 2013, at her home. She was born March 14, 1915, at Cincinnati, Ohio to Cecil and Roxie Singleton Christy. After high school graduation and taking care of children in private homes for several years she went into nursing school and graduated as a registered nurse in 1944. She joined the Army Nurse Corps and requested Pacific Theatre duty.
She worked at White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia then went to the Philippines-then to Japan. After the peace treaty was signed, she processed the POW’s then set up the 42nd General Hospital in Tokyo for the American Service Men. She served from 1945 to 1946. After service she came to Valley View Hospital and worked there until 1974, except for a short stint at the glass plant as plant nurse. She was an active member of Oklahoma Farm Bureau since the 1950s. In November 2011 she was awarded the first ever Lifetime Legacy Award for her service in the Farm Bureau. She was a member of Southwest Church of Christ.
She married Artie J. Smith on March 18, 1950. He preceded her in death on April 2, 1999.
Survivors include two sisters-in-law Norma and Alice Christy and many nieces, nephews and cousins, including Barbara and Bill Morgan of Ada, her caregivers, and two nephews she helped raise, Greg Yelle of Edmond, Oklahoma and Bob Yelle of Tulsa.
She was preceded in death by her husband, Artie J. Smith; brother and sister-in-law James and Dymple Coffey; father, Cecil Christy; mother, Roxie Christy; brothers, James Leroy, Delbert, Paul and Kenneth and sisters, Beulah, Alta and Alma.
Bearers will be David Hendricks, Wendell Sherrell, Alan Simpson, Tommy Myers, Larry Darbison and Gene Albright. Honorary bearers will be Eugene Cannon, Jim Begin and her friends in the Farm Bureau Women’s Committee, Helen Denslow, Janet Gibson, Mildred West, Shirley Walls and Shirley Barrett.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Search of the Haitian orphanage through Southwest Church of Christ.
Obituaries may be viewed and online condolences sent to criswellfh.com
Criswell Funeral Home, Ada
