Elizabeth Sue Smith

Sue “Nana” Smith spent her life making people feel loved, welcomed, and important. Born and raised in West Orange, she attended West Orange High School. Aunt Rusty introduced her to the love of her life, Arles “Shorty” Smith, and she married him just six weeks later. They resided in Dallas, TX, before moving to Kemp, Texas, in 1969. Together, they built a life centered around family, community, and an extraordinary amount of love.

While raising her children, Sue was a devoted homemaker and an involved mother in every sense of the word. She was an active member of the PTA throughout all her children’s school years and a dedicated member of the athletic booster club, where she spent countless hours working concession stands and hosting football season after-parties—often feeding an entire football team. After her children graduated, Sue worked for a film recycling company, a glass company, and eventually a small-town liquidation store that her grandchildren still remember as their own personal playground. In the 1970s, she and Shorty owned a café, and in the early 1980s, they helped organize and build the Kemp Senior Citizen Center- another place that would become part of her grandchildren’s childhoods. Sue became its first site manager and remained there until her retirement.

And then there was the role she was born for: Nana. She was a better-than-amazing grandmother, great-grandmother, and great-great-grandmother who proudly spoiled all 48 of her grandchildren, along with all the “extras” she claimed as her own. She raised her first grandson as her son, loved him as one, and he loved her as his mother. Her actual children often had to remind her that he was, technically, her grandson. She opened her home and her heart just as freely to every generation that followed. Whether attending athletic events, saying yes to every sleepover (whether it was the parents or children asking), showing up for prom pictures, creating personalized Christmas gifts, or answering a grandchild’s call for a very suspicious “I don’t feel good” and picking them up from school, Nana made each of us feel like we were her favorite.

At 50, Sue survived being struck by a drunk driver—a miracle that came with lifelong walking difficulties and, eventually, double knee replacements. Still, she remained fiercely devoted to the people she loved. She cared for Shorty, her one true love, through his illness until his passing in 2013. Afterward, she continued filling her days with the people and things she loved: riding around town with her daughter Lynn, keeping up with her grandchildren both in person and on Facebook, never missing lunch with a girlfriend or family member, working at the cemetery, rearranging a room, or making a wreath whenever she happened to be home.

Her world became smaller after several falls, hospital stays, rehabilitation, and eventually a diagnosis of dementia. It was a difficult and emotional final year, but Sue remained able to speak, have some sass, and get her nails done until only days before her passing. Through it all, one thing never changed: she was deeply loved, and she knew it.

Sue leaves behind a family who will forever carry pieces of her with them—the many things she has collected, the traditions she created, the stories she told and gave us, the unconditional “yes” she so often offered, and most of all, the unmistakable feeling of being loved by Nana.

She spent her life surrounded by people who adored her, and now she is finally back with the people she had been missing for so long. Her love will continue through every child, grandchild, great-grandchild, and great-great-grandchild who was lucky enough to call her Nana.