Ms. Virginia Louise Smith was born in Ogden, Arkansas, on June 10th, 1942. She graduated from the Little River County Training School at Ashdown, Arkansas, in 1959. In the same year, she entered Arkansas Agricultural Mechanical, and Normal College (later the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff) and graduated with a major in Physical Education in 1963. There, she pledged Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated. Louise taught P.E. one year at Lilbourn, Missouri. She became an instructor at AM&N and later obtained a Master of Arts in Physical Education from the University of Iowa (Iowa City) in 1968. She returned to AM&N as a P.E. Instructor in 1968 and remained through 1969, then went to California, where she taught for many years in Bay Area high schools.
After retiring from a career in education, Louise became a Financial Advisor at Waddell & Reed in San Mateo, California, for many years. Her tenacious work effort was recognized for $10 million in sales, and she was rewarded with trips to Portugal, Hawaii, and Hong Kong. She enjoyed traveling with her sister, Vivian, and her niece, Aetna Ruth, respectively, on these travels. She retired to Little Rock in 2018 to care for her mother.
Louise loved all sports, college, professional and international. She enjoyed cooking, shopping, sightseeing, politics, and meeting people from the South, whom she had the pleasure of teaching about financial planning. She took especially great pleasure in driving people up the “Crookedest Street in the World” in San Francisco (in her stick shift car), debating hot topics, and spoiling her younger brothers and sisters and all her nieces and nephews rotten.
Louise was preceded in death by her parents, P. Lawrence Smith, Sr., and Clydia Smith Monroe; sister, Edna Ruth Smith, and brother, Gregory Smith; grandparents, William and Lena Smith, and Pete and Hattie Wilbourn. She was also preceded in death by her aunt, Doris Osborne, and cousin, Arnaye Osborne. She is survived by her brothers, Dr. Paul L. Smith, Jr. (Hazel) of Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and Darrell K. Monroe (Nicole) of Inglewood, California, and sisters, Maxine Smith of Elk Grove, California, Vivian Smith of Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and Sonja Smith of Little Rock, Arkansas. She is also survived by her uncle, W.G. Osborne (Doris) of California. She will be fondly missed by her friends, including San Mateo neighbor, Jackie Mack. She is survived by a host of cousins across the country as well as nieces and nephews who will dearly miss their “Aunt Wheezy.
Memorial Service Saturday, November 11, 2023 12:00 PM at Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church Ogden, Arkansas under the direction of Jones Stuart Mortuary.
