Damn Few Left

JONESBORO

Mae, 95, and Charlie Smith, 96, married for 76 years
By HOLLY CRENSHAW
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 04/07/06

The secret to the long, happy marriage of Charlie B. Smith and Mae M. Smith: She led the way and he quietly followed.

Mr. and Mrs. Smith of Jonesboro were married 76 years and died one day apart at Henry Medical Center. Fittingly, she went first.


When Charlie and Mae Smith celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary in 1955, they were relative newlyweds. They met in 1930 as employees at Sears on Ponce de Leon Avenue.


Mrs. Smith, 95, died Saturday of congestive heart failure and Mr. Smith, 96, died Sunday of complications from pneumonia. The bodies were cremated. Memorial service plans will be announced. Cremation Society of Georgia is in charge of arrangements.

"He was in one room and Mom was right across the hall, and Dad was expected to die by Saturday morning," said their son, Charlie W. Smith Sr. of Griffin. "But my mom was going to take the lead in everything, and she died Saturday morning.

"We figure she was up in heaven trying to arrange the place the way she wanted it before he got there. You'd have to have known her."

The Smiths met when they were working at the former Sears, Roebuck & Co. on Ponce de Leon Avenue in Atlanta and married in 1930.

Mr. Smith, an Atlanta native, spent 20 years as an Atlanta firefighter based out of the No. 19 station in Virginia-Highland and retired in 1965.

Mrs. Smith, who was born near Athens, channeled her outgoing personality into telephone survey work, door-to-door census taking and volunteering at her polling center, where she'd chat up voters who knew her so well they'd bring her sausage biscuits.

The dynamo earned her GED in her 60s, then took up her husband's passion for golf when she was 75.

The couple moved to Villa Rica around 1974 and threw themselves into their mutual obsession with gardening. Mrs. Smith turned their yard into a showcase for her flowers while Mr. Smith tended his vegetables.

"It seemed to me that she was always telling him what to do and that he ignored her," said their former neighbor Betty Ganka of Villa Rica. "But to stay together more than 75 years, they must have had something going."

Their daughter, Marjorie S. Orr of Stockbridge, said, "Somebody asked Daddy one time how their marriage lasted so long, and he said, 'Because I stayed outside and kept my mouth shut.' But they really did a lot of things together."

The Smiths nurtured their own interests — she liked to crochet, sew and organize neighborhood potluck suppers, and he was a talented handyman — but they shared a love of deep-sea fishing and travel.

Occasionally, their daughter said, Mr. Smith admitted he was happy to stay home with his tabby cat, Jerry. Mostly, though, he joined his wife on marathon cross-country treks.

"My mother could tell you every place they stopped, every penny they spent, exactly how many miles they went — she had it down," their son said. "She had a fantastic memory for details, where he was a typical man. He didn't give a damn about where he was going."

The couple, who moved to Jonesboro five years ago to be near their daughter, drove into their 90s and still lived independently. They were hospitalized a few days before their deaths.

When Mrs. Smith died Saturday, their daughter gently broke the news to Mr. Smith.
"I told him to go on, that Mother was gone, and kind of released him," she said. "He was semiconscious so I can't say for sure that he heard me, but I hope he did."

After he died, a nurse at the hospital told her, "He acted like a true Southern gentleman. He let the lady go first."

Survivors include three grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.