Jeannette Whitley Smith

Jeannette Smith

Funeral services for Mrs. Jeannette LeVaughn Whitley Smith of Dublin will be on Friday, April 19, 2013, at 11 AM at the First African Baptist Church, 405 Telfair Street in Dublin. Reverend E. Neal Dixon will officiate. Interment will follow in the Dudley Memorial Cemetery in Dublin.

Mrs. Smith was born on September 27, 1946, to the late Willie Curtis Whitley and Virginia Ricks Whitley in Adrian, Georgia, as the oldest of three girls. She was also the granddaughter of the late Steward Luther and Mamie Cephus Ricks who raised her and her siblings, and Willie and Mamie Whitley.

She was educated in the public schools of Adrian Elementary in Adrian, Georgia, and at Dock Kemp High School in Wrightsville, Georgia. While at Dock Kemp, she excelled in all of her academic classes and graduated third in her class. She attended Morris Brown College in Atlanta, Georgia, where she majored in Home Economics and Science. While at Morris Brown she was a pyramid of her Delta Sigma Theta Sorority chapter, a member of the Concert Choir, the Drama Club and a cheerleader. She also attended the Cincinnati School of Business in Cincinnati, Ohio.

While living in Adrian, she was a member of the Adrian Chapel C.M.E. Church. After moving to Dublin, she joined the First African Baptist Church under the leadership of Reverend H. B. Johnson, Jr., where she served in many capacities including Sunday School Teacher, Church Treasurer, and Daycare Director, member of the Gospel and Senior Choirs, Media Ministry, Newsletter Committee.

She was an avid cook and loved to prepare food for others' enjoyment. She always prepared more than enough because her motto was, “somebody may come by here that is hungry and I want to be sure that I have food to give to them”.

She began her professional career on August 12, 1972, with Southern Bell in Atlanta, Georgia, as a telephone operator. While at Southern Bell (now Bellsouth Telecommunications) she worked as a Drafting Clerk, an Engineering Clerk and a Contract Engineer before retiring on December 31, 1997. She was a licensed insurance agent with Liberty National Insurance Company. She served as the director of the First African Baptist Church Child Care and Learning Center from October 1, 2004 to June 1, 2011. While there, she earned her Childcare Development Associates Degree.

She was a member of the Smooth Ashlars Eastern Star Society and the Heroines of Jericho, was a founding member of the Voices of Joy Community Choir, Inc., and a member of the board of directors for Habitat for Humanity.

She is survived by her husband, Eugene Smith, Sr.; sons, Terrence (Linda) Williams, Taldon (Sharon) Williams; daughter, Taronda S. Smith, all of Dublin; Her bonus children, Eugene (Ellen) Smith, Jr., Dublin, Carolyn Smith, Jacksonville, Florida, Angela Dunnaway, Fredricksburg, Virginia, Gregory (Peggy) Smith, North Augusta, South Carolina, and Gina Kelly, of McDonough; sisters, Marie Whitley (Bobby) Ward, Swainsboro, and Sheryl Whitley, Dublin; aunts, Jacquelyn Whitley, Atlanta, Juanell Bailey, Tampa, Florida, Jessie Whitley, Newark, New Jersey; an uncle, Johnny (Nellie) Whitley, Adrian; sisters-in-law, Jeanelle Bostic and Elois Smith of Dublin, Rudene Moore, of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and Saxon Jones of Atlanta; brother-in-law, Sidney Smith of Newark, New Jersey; twenty-two grandchildren and ten great-grandchildren, cousins whom she considered her sisters, Alta (Preston) Graves of Miami, Florida, and Reba Ricks of Baltimore, Maryland, and a host of other relatives and friends.

The family will receive friends at 225 Cascade Circle in Dublin.

The family will also receive friends on Thursday, April 18, from 7 to 9 PM at the Dudley Funeral Home.

Services By Dudley Funeral Home of Dublin
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