James L. "Smitty" Smith

JAMES LAYVON “SMITTY” SMITH Funeral services for longtime Mancos resident, James Layvon “Smitty” Smith will be held at 2 p.m., Thursday, May 24 at the Mancos Performance Center. Interment will follow at the Cedar Grove Cemetery with Military Honors and Masonic rites being conducted. Smitty was born July 14, 1921 in Mize, Miss., the son of James Frank and Ida Mary (Johnson) Smith. He passed away at the Valley Inn Nursing Home on Friday, May 18, 2007 at the age of 85. On December 18, 1937 Smitty married Mady Kolean Craft in Raleigh, Miss. They shared 69 years 5 months of marriage and raising six children. He proudly served his nation in the U.S. Army. He was a member of Disabled American Veterans. After the family’s move to the Mancos Valley, Smitty became a member of the Southern Baptist Church, and the Masons and was a Rainbow Dad. He was part of the crew that installed the natural gas system for Dolores, Mancos and Cortez. Smitty loved hunting and fishing and spending time with his family. Within his family, two great grandchildren and one great great grandchild share their birthday with Smitty. Surviving Smitty are his beloved wife, Kolean Smith of Mancos; children, Vonda May and husband, Richard of Farmington, N.M., Susie Noland and husband, Frank, Jack Smith and wife, Jeanne, Mary Pickens and husband, Gilmer, and Paul Smith and wife, Rhonda all of Mancos, and Judy Reider of Hesperus; and 15 grandchildren, 29 great grandchildren and six great grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his parents; grandsons, Billy Lynn and Bobby Markham, James Oen Noland, Darin Bradshaw and Richard Layvon Smith; granddaughter-in-law, Dede Smith, great granddaughter, Lena Michelle Schnaubert; son-in-law, Wes Reider; and four sisters and one brother. Memorial contributions can be made in memory of James L. “Smitty” Smith with the Mancos Ambulance.