Lucia Rogers Smith

One of Whitlock Height’s original founding residents, Lucia Rogers Smith, died Saturday, January 21, 2012. She was 98. Lucia was born in Brooklyn in 1913. Her mother, Emma Ludwig Rogers, was a successful businesswoman who met Guy Rogers on a golf course at the turn of the last century. At the age of three Lucia moved with her family to settle in the farming community of Lookingglass, Oregon. It was there with her three sisters and two brothers that she shaped the core values that would form the basis of her life. In the Great Depression Lucia entered Baylor University, where she was named to several honorary societies and given the great honor of serving as curator of Baylor’s world famous Browning Library. There she met and later married Brooks P. Smith, a United Press journalist who would move to Marietta in 1948 to become publisher of the Marietta Daily Journal. The two traveled the world together visiting every continent except Antarctica during their 47 year marriage. In Marietta Lucia and Brooks established many lasting friendships as they raised their family of three daughters and one son. The family put roots down at First Baptist Church, where Lucia was a faithful member for 63 years and part of the Phebean Sunday School Class, a volunteer with the English School and a leader of a book review group later named the Lucia Smith Roundtable. At Christmas she wrote Advent lessons and dressed in period costume to dramatize missionary Lottie Moon. Lucia made fast friends with young and old neighbors as she often worked in her Walnut Drive yard from dawn to dusk, raking leaves all day, waving to businessmen on their way to work and greeting them once again as they returned home in the evening. Well into her 90’s she walked a four mile “loop”, cleaning up neighbor’s yards along the way as a gesture of friendship. Many of Lucia’s friends were found at the bridge table as she played in several ladies groups and a couples’ group for 40 years. For more than twenty years she hosted the Anne Hudgins Shakespeare Class at her home. She was a regular student in the ELM Creative Writing and Current Events classes sponsored by First Methodist Church. An avid writer, in 1990 Lucia collaborated with her sister, Margaret Maier, to co-author a fascinating biography of their mother entitled “Lookingglass, Emma’s Little Patch of Ground.” At the time of her death she was one of six Alzheimer patients known as the “DayBreak Six” who were fighting the state of Georgia’s mandatory discharge from their wonderful home at DayBreak Village Assisted Living in Kennesaw, merely because she was no longer able to walk unassisted. She was predeceased by her husband, Brooks P. Smith; her son-in-law, David Hubbard; brother, Dennett Rogers; sisters Dorothy Hansell, Margaret Maier and Virginia Owens. She is survived by her daughter, Lucia Hubbard of Spokane, WA; daughter, Linda S. Smith and husband Warren Smith, Jr. of Nashville, TN; daughter, Marcia S. Ruff and husband Rex Ruff of Acworth; and son, Hap Smith and wife Donna, of Marietta; thirteen grandchildren and 26 great grandchildren; and brother Ovid Rogers of Bandon, Oregon. A memorial service will be held Monday, January 23 at 3:00 p.m. at First Baptist Church of Marietta with Dr. Bill Ross officiating. The family will receive friends immediately following the service in the Fellowship Hall. Members of the Phebean Class and the Anne Hudgins Shakespeare Class are requested to sit together as honored friends. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to First Baptist Church of Marietta, 148 Church Street, Marietta, GA 30060. Mayes Ward-Dobbins Funeral Home and Crematory is in charge of arrangements www.mayeswarddobbins.com

Lucia Rogers Smith

April 20, 1913 - January 21, 2012