Catherine Marie Smith

Services: A Funeral Service will be held on Wednesday, March 11, 2015 at 10:00 AM in Mt. Zion United Methodist Church Mechanicsville, MD with Rev. Sue Carns officiating. Interment will follow in the church cemetery. Visitation: The family will receive friends on Tuesday, March 10, 2015 from 5:00 PM – 8:00 PM with prayers recited at 7:00 PM in the Mattingley-Gardiner Funeral Home Leonardtown, MD. Catherine Marie Smith (Kay) passed into eternal sleep peacefully in her home on March 4, 2015. Catherine was born September 26, 1929 in Mechanicsville, MD. She is preceded in death by her parents Louis Webster Wood and Mary Elsie Buckler of Mechanicsville, her husband of 42 years, James Rodger Smith, daughter Catherine Marie Williams, and siblings, Earl Wood, Kenneth Wilmer Wood, Joseph Harold Wood, Meriel Carroll, Robert Louis Wood, and Margaret Jean Inman. Catherine is survived by daughters Monica Ivy Smith and Pamela Gale Smith (Tom Pacobit); Grandchildren: Kelly Williams, Jamie Dawn Skinner (David), Bradley Carey (Kelly), Brandon Webster Copsey, Taylor Megan Pacobit, and Steven Ray Pacobit; and Great-Grandchild Kolby Warren Corrigan. She is also survived by sisters Mary Helen Nelson and Jeanette Theresa Buckler, alongside her son-in-law Warren Williams. Catherine graduated from Margaret Brent High School in 1944. Soon thereafter Catherine left her rural home for aspirations of city life. Being born during the Depression and experiencing the hardships of rural life, she moved to Washington D.C. from her family’s Mechanicsville farm and became employed at the Mayflower Hotel where she became a manicurist. Many stories were regaled by Catherine of working on many of the movie stars during the time such as Frank Sinatra, Pat Boone, and Gene Autry, politicians, dignitaries, and other white-collar (of high caliber) city folk. It was in Washington D.C. as a manicurist, where she met and later married James Roger Smith. James and Catherine later returned to her roots in St. Mary’s County and made a home in Patuxent Beach (the former Seven Gables Community). Catherine was the Martha Stewart of her time. She was the matriarch of her family and to the community and made everyone feel welcomed and part of her family however extended it may be. Catherine was known by many in the community by family, friends and neighbors as Kay, Nan, NanMamma, Burphie, Juanita, and Granny-Kay. She was revered as a caring and loving woman with much knowledge and advice. Her pleasures were crafts, gardening, building (at time reverse engineering things), cooking, and floral design for weddings and events. Catherine’s perseverance was unmatched in so many ways as she was a very determined person. She was an accomplished gardener, manicurist, homemaker, business woman (she invested in much real estate over the years), a loving and devoted mother, grandmother, great grandmother, sister, aunt, friend and neighbor. Catherine’s greatest pleasures were sharing all of her interests with family, friends and neighbors. Her greatest gift was sharing her knowledge, her time and her stories with the ones she loved. She would give of herself to others be it a story, a joke, a hug, or a glass of tea and conversation. She was an avid storyteller, a lost art today. Catherine had a situation appropriate story for just about everything. One of her sage advices were, a “wise man will give you advice, and a fool won’t take it.” Catherine so enjoyed gardening that she would give plants and bulbs to everyone she loved. As a gardener she would occasionally plant indiscriminate roses and other plantings in and around the neighborhood. Her plant offspring’s can be found all throughout the community and spanning many states for those who came to visit and got the ‘Kay Smith’ care package. She fed many over the years as she was very nurturing and often joked that she was a First National Bank, a bed and breakfast, a taxi service, a maid, a short-order cook and she shared with many these fast order cooking techniques. Her specialty was fried chicken and mashed potatoes ‘Southern Style’. Catherine Marie Smith was truly a “Southern Style” woman who cared for everyone that came into her life. She was the definition of self-less and will be missed and loved forever. The family will receive friends on Tuesday, March 10, 2015 from 5:00 PM – 8:00 PM with prayers recited at 7:00 PM in the Mattingley-Gardiner Funeral Home Leonardtown, MD. A Funeral Service will be held on Wednesday, March 11, 2015 at 10:00 AM in Mt. Zion United Methodist Church Mechanicsville, MD with Rev. Sue Carns officiating. Interment will follow in the church cemetery. Pallbearers will be: Bradley Carey, Brandon Copsey, Kolby Corrigan, Randy Wood, Jeff Wood, Steven Pacobit and Joe Haller.