Barbara Daniel Smiley passed away peacefully on October 12, 2022.
Barbara was born January 4, 1930, in Nashville, Tennessee, where she lived until she moved with her parents, Frances and William Daniel, to Raleigh, North Carolina.
She loved growing up in Raleigh and attended St. Mary’s, Meredith, and Duke Universities. After marrying her high school sweetheart, Tom Smiley, the newlyweds moved to California where he was a Navy pilot serving in the Korean conflict. Afterwards, they returned to North Carolina where they graduated from the University of North Carolina.
The Smileys moved to Texas in 1957 and Barbara pursued her love of painting portraits and landscapes. While searching for a forever home, she fell in love with the Aledo valley and moved to Aledo in 1968 where they raised four daughters.
Barbara was a founding member of the Aledo Christian Center and a long-time teacher in the Aledo school district. Because she showed such compassion for struggling elementary readers, Barbara was asked by the principal to launch the first program for special education at the elementary school. When this was established, she moved to implement the program in the middle and then high school.
Barbara was preceded in death by her daughter, Beth Smiley Becker, who passed away in 2013.
She is survived by husband, Tom; daughters, Kit Smiley Marshall and husband, Hugh, Laura Smiley Paulk and husband, Larry, and BJ Smiley Goins and husband, Ron; ten grandchildren; and thirteen great-grandchildren. We celebrate her life and remember her love, her love of Jesus, her artistic creativity, and her beautiful and joyful smile.
A funeral service was held on Monday, October 17, at Galbreaith Pickard Funeral Chapel in Weatherford, followed by burial in Brown Cemetery, Aledo, Texas.
For those wishing to do so, memorials may be made to WallBuilders.
The Community News
October 21, 2022
