Eleanor Anne Smith

(1930-2022) Eleanor Anne Smith, 92, devoted wife, mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, passed away on Sunday, November 13, 2022 surrounded by friends and family. She is survived by her grandchildren Michael Metzner of Los Angeles, CA and Emily DeMarco of Wellington, FL who is the mother of her three great grandchildren, Noah, Sophia, and Jackson. Eleanor lived a life full of love and was known by many as the “Italian Betty White” for her vibrant personality, quick-wit, and love for loud colors and animal print. Born June 14, 1930 in New York City she grew up a lover of music and took the train into the city to attend piano classes at Juilliard, performing her first solo concert at Steinway Hall at the age of sixteen. She knew early that she didn’t want a career of performing and ended up teaching thousands of students piano in an over 65 year long career- giving her last piano lesson less than a week before she passed. She married her high school sweetheart, Rodney Smith, in 1953 and enjoyed sixty-one fabulous years of marriage. They often travelled around the world and enjoyed many vacations with their family and friends. They had one child, Cheryl, and raised her between New York, New Jersey, and a couple of years in Bogota, Columbia where Rodney worked for Exxon and Eleanor continued to teach piano. Cheryl passed suddenly at the age of 56, leaving the family at much too young an age. She lost her husband less than a year later. Despite the many obstacles and heartaches throughout her life, she always focused on the positive. She was the glue that held her family together. She would tell everyone that “they would want us to pick ourselves up and keep living life. Keep excelling. Keep doing what we were put on this earth to do.”

She was a grandmother figure to many who didn’t have that person in their life. She was the rockstar, the one who made everyone laugh, and the one who had a daily prayer list that included many. Her power of prayer and faith was awe-inspiring and everyone would always joke that if you made that prayer list, you had no idea how blessed you were. Her faith was the rock of her life. She truly was an exemplary Christian who despite her upbringing, embraced and accepted people no matter what gender, orientation, or religion.

She spent her free time playing bridge with her friends and was part of the musical group called the “Morning Glories” who toured around Palm Beach County nursing homes, bringing love and light to all who listened to their songs. She always wanted to be a doctor, but growing up in the 1930's was not allowed to get a formal degree. But that didn’t stop her from making a cameo as an internal medicine doctor on ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy and making sure that every doctors appointment thereon included her taking out her Grey Sloan Memorial Badge to show the office.

Her capacity to love was rooted in her Christian faith. Her love for her family and friends knew no bounds. When her husband passed she longed for the day that she would one day be reunited with him. She never feared death and strove to live life as though every day could be her last. Her family found it appropriate as she was about to take her last breath to play her wedding song, “Too Young” by Nat King Cole:

“They try to tell us we're too young

Too young to really be in love

They say that love's a word

A word we've only heard

But can't begin to know the meaning of

And yet we're not too young to know

This love will last though years may go

And then some day they may recall

We were not too young at all

And yet we're not too young to know

This love will last though years may go

And then some day they may recall

We were not too young at all”

She taught many how to love unconditionally. And in her own romantic ending in this last chapter of her physical life, she made sure to take her last heart beat on the final chord of Cole’s beautiful song. It’s easy to shut down after such a consequential loss, but we all know in the deepest depths of our heart that we must all follow the lesson that “they would want us to pick ourselves up and keep living life. Keep excelling. Keep doing what we were put on this earth to do.”

A celebration of Eleanor’s life will be held at 11:00am, December 9 at the Royal Palm Beach Campus of Christ Fellowship. Attendees are encouraged to wear vibrant colors and animal print as to honor Eleanor’s love for all things bright.