Funeral services for Ruth Elizabeth Smith of Iola, whose death Tuesday was reported in Wednesday’s Register, will be at 2 p.m. Friday at Waugh-Yokum & Friskel Memorial Chapels in Iola. Chaplain Lloyd W. Houk will officiate. Inurnment will be at a later date in Highland Cemetery in Iola.
She was born June 5, 1938, in Fort Scott, the daughter of Lee Roy and Ruth Elizabeth (Daw) Williams. She grew up in Fort Scott.
On Jan. 7, 1956, she married Otis Smith in Nevada, Mo. They made their home in Missouri, Arkansas and Kansas and had four children before they divorced. She moved to Iola from Yates Center and had worked as a waitress at Forestines’s, Downtown Fine Foods, The Greenery and Hardee’s. She liked to read.
She is survived by two sons, Randall L., Iola, and Joe and his wife, Anna, Clinton, Mo.; two daughters, Alzina Kress and her husband, John, and Mary E. Smith, Iola; 12 grandchildren; 13 great-grandchildren; two brothers, Phillip Williams, Joplin, Mo., and Ed Williams, Portland, Ore.; and three sisters, Edith Narloch, Yates Center, Theresa Jackson, Frontenac, and Bonnie Marshall, Fort Scott.
A grandson, Skylee Mansseh Fishback, a brother, LeRoy Williams, and two sisters, Alice Williams and Mary Jewsbury, died earlier.
Memorials to the Ruth E. Smith Memorial Fund may be left at the funeral home. Online condolences for the family may be left at iolafuneral.com.
Smith services
