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Jasper Eugene Smith, who with his wife Irene lived in their adopted hometown of Ventura for 70 years, raising six boys and one girl while being an active booster of local athletics for five decades, passed away peacefully over the Memorial Day weekend among loving family members in Sonoma. He was 99. 

The popular patriarch became a fixture in the community through his years-long support of Ventura High School and Ventura College sports teams as well as the College Methodist Church, Foothill Little League, Ventura Youth Basketball Association and Retired Men’s Club of Ventura.

Gene, as he was known, also worked for over 20 years as a civil engineer for the federal government in Port Hueneme. He developed six patented oceanographic technologies during his tenure with the federal government. 

But Gene was perhaps best known to multiple generations of friends, relatives and associates as a pillar of strength, wisdom, kindness and good humor through the triumphs and tragedies of a remarkable life that included several brushes with death as a combat-tested US Marine in the Pacific Theater of the Second World War. 

Jasper Eugene Smith was born on April 25, 1922, in El Dorado, Arkansas, a booming oil town at the time. Successive moves by his family took Eugene to Shreveport and New Orleans, Louisiana; Fort Smith and Little Rock, Arkansas; and Rochester, Minnesota; before eventually settling in Glendale and then Ontario, CA. 

 The day after graduating from Chaffey High School in Ontario on June 6, 1941, Jasper drove to a recruiting station in Los Angeles and joined the United States Marine Corps. His first assignment after boot camp was as an anti-aircraft gunner on the USS Indianapolis.

The Indy was fortifying Johnston Atoll when the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor took place, but Gene and his shipmates saw first-hand the smoldering wreckage of the devastated US Fleet after the Indianapolis returned at flank speed to Pearl Harbor on the morning of December 8, 1941.

Gene later fought in the battles of the Coral Sea, the Aleutian Islands and Roi Namur. 

During the Marines’ amphibious invasion of Saipan, Jasper was severely wounded in some of the fiercest fighting of the war, earning a Purple Heart. Regrettably, Gene was the only survivor of his 3rd Squad, 3rd Platoon, I Company, 23rd Marines.

After enduring several months in a full body cast, and re-learning to walk, Jasper married the love of his life, Irene Jensen, whom he’d met two years earlier at a USO Ball hosted by Art Linkletter in Oakland. 

 Gene and Irene’s first stop together as a young couple was the University of Idaho. There, Gene earned his civil engineering degree in 1947 with the help of the GI Bill and Irene, who received an honorary PHT in the process —for ‘Putting Hubby Through.”

During their wartime courtship and correspondence, Irene promised Gene they’d have “lots of children” one day. True to her word, sons Eugene, Murray, Conley, Spencer, Graham , daughter Ora-Louise and son Lawson soon followed. The growing family moved from Sacramento to Santa Paula in 1951 and in 1953 a few miles west to Ventura. This coastal enclave was to be Gene’s, Irene’s and the Smith family’s home base for the next several decades.

With wife Irene, Gene served for many years as active and charter members of College Methodist Church. The family would endure sad and trying times when, first, sons Murray and then Eugene died far too young in tragic circumstances. But neither Jasper nor Irene allowed these heart-breaking losses to dampen their commitment and love of family and community. 

In later years, with his own children grown, Gene became a prominent booster of the long-reigning state champion Ventura College Lady Pirates basketball team. He continued to follow the team avidly online, as well as NCAA women’s basketball and the WNBA after moving to Sonoma in 2019 to live with family members.

True to Gene's gregarious nature, throughout his many years in Ventura and for the last two years of his life in Sonoma, Gene continued to develop and maintain personal relationships with family, friends, neighbors, doctors, nurses, restaurant servers and the shopkeepers he met while wheeling about in his ubiquitous motorized scooter. 

Jasper was pre-deceased by his wife Irene; siblings Larry Smith of Seattle; Patricia Dornan of Jackson Hole, Wyoming; Ronald Smith of Chico; and sons Eugene and Murray. He is survived by sons Conley Smith (and wife Nancy) of Sonoma; Spencer Smith (and wife Angela) of Sacramento, Graham Smith of Sonoma; daughter Ora- Louise Smith (and husband) Kim Slininger of Sonoma; and Lawson Smith (and wife Sonja) of Suisun City. His surviving grandchildren are Erik Smith of Paso Robles; Ian Smith (and wife Juliana) of Thousand Oaks; Autumn Cronin (and husband Kevin Cronin) of San Francisco; Tierney Smith of Brooklyn; Torrey Slininger of Ventura; Crystal McNamara of Ventura; Jansen Smith of Victorville, Reyna Smith of Los Angeles; Dekker Smith and Sasha Smith of Suisun City; and great-grandsons Liam McNamara of Ventura and Lucian Smith of Thousand Oaks.

A memorial service and celebration of Jasper Eugene Smith’s extraordinary life will be scheduled and held next year in Ventura on what would have been his 100th birthday.

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