Dolores Mann Smith

Dolores was born May 24, 1928, in Detroit, Michigan to J.B. and Clara Burgess Mann. Sadly, her mother died from complications of childbirth, and Dolores was raised by relatives in Alabama, growing up in Whistler, Toulminville and Prichard.

She attended Murphy High School in Mobile.

She held various jobs starting as a young teenager, including retail and office positions. Her last job was as personnel director at Gayfer’s Department Store in Springdale Plaza (now Springdale Mall).

Dolores literally married the boy next door, Willie H. Smith, on Aug. 11, 1945, while he was home on leave following Navy basic training and before he shipped out to the Pacific in the waning days of World War II. They eventually settled in Mobile’s Dauphin Acres neighborhood, where they lived for some 70 years until Dolores’s death.

Dolores gave birth to two boys, Steve and Randy. The family often spent summer vacations in the Smoky Mountains. For many years Dolores loved camping in the national park; later, she and Willie – sometimes joined by their now-grown sons and their families – enjoyed renting a cabin in Gatlinburg.

Until her health no longer permitted, Dolores also liked short getaway visits to Biloxi and Gulfport, Mississippi. She also took pleasure in dining out, with a particular fondness for seafood on the Causeway or down in Bayou La Batre.

Dolores was blessed with three grandchildren and six great grandchildren, and doted on all of them.

Granddaughter Carrie Nenstiel remembers her as someone who found simple joy in sipping coffee with friends or sitting in the yard and watching the world go by “with her favorite fella,” and who believed she could “fix anything” – and usually could.

“I’m so lucky to have been loved by her and to have counted her as a friend as well as my grandmother. I asked her for the secret to being married so long, and she said, ‘Oh, just love ‘em honey … and make ‘em think they love you.’ I am happy to have inherited her round cheeks and comedic timing.”

The family appreciates the expressions of condolence they have received, and also want to thank friends and neighbors for the many kindnesses shown to their wife and mother in recent years as her general condition declined. Kindred Hospice made Dolores’s final weeks ones of comfort, while assisting her husband Willie with many caregiving duties.

Dolores is survived by her husband, Willie Herman Smith of Mobile; two sons, Ronald Stephen Smith (Kathy) of Chapel Hill, NC and Randal Wayne Smith (Joyce) of Mobile; one grandson, Randal Bryant Smith (Jamie) of Mobile; two granddaughters, Carrie Elizabeth Nenstiel (Parker) of Vestavia Hills, AL, and Carter Susanna Hodges Smith (Baptiste Lefebvre) of Portland, Oregon; and six great grandchildren.

Visitation will be Friday, Nov. 11, beginning at 10 a.m. at Pine Crest Cemetery, followed by a memorial service in the chapel at 11 a.m. Burial in Pine Crest will follow the service.