Mary Ellen Smith was born on July 12, 1930 in Kansas City Missouri. Her mother became gravely ill after giving birth and passed away eight days later. Being the depression and since her father already had a son, it was decided Mary’s aunt Myrtle and husband Les Hood would raise her in Liberal Kansas. Les was a cattle rancher and owned a Chevy dealership.

As a young girl, Mary was an accomplished piano player and won an award for playing ‘The Minute Walz’ by Chopin. If you’ve heard it, you can appreciate the talent required to play such a complicated and technical piece.

At 14, she was lucky enough to go to the Brownmoor School at Bishops Lodge in Santa Fe, New Mexico, beginning a lifelong love affair with Santa Fe's rich culture of Puebloan Indian culture, colorful art, amazing food and truly magical landscapes.

She attended Colby-Sawyer College in New London, New Hampshire studying Interior Design. She worked her trade for 70 straight years.

She married John Jenkins and they had three sons and a daughter. Brock, Leslie, Scott and Christian. She faced emotional and physical abuse during this chapter of her life. Mary had another daughter, Jody, and was forced to give her up for adoption. She was fortunate enough to reunite with Jody in 2000 at her 70th birthday celebration. Mary and John divorced and Mary moved back to Liberal with her three sons, as her daughter, Leslie succumbed to a virus at only four years old.

She met the true love of her life, Ralph Smith, who was the Police Chief in Liberal. They had two sons, Trey and Cameron. In 1967 Ralph was hired as the police chief in Fort Collins, Colorado. They gathered up all five boys and began their new adventure in Colorado.

Mary was hired as a designer at Bowlings Galleries and met a young, talented designer named Gary Hixon. They shared birthdays, a fun sense of humor and a love of color. A close and lifelong friendship was born . In addition to interior design, Mary was extremely talented with space planning and architectural design with new homes and remodels as well. She designed the Bartran mansion in Timnath and a few in California that she planned every inch of.

She had three granddaughters, Tori, Jensen, and Maia. Tori had two twin boys, Samson and Elias. Mary was so overjoyed about her great grandsons and she was able to meet them a few times before her passing.

Her love with Ralph Smith was a storybook romance kind of love. They were best friends, they laughed and loved each other every day. They had a vibrant social life and loved their many friends. Their dream was cut short on New Year’s day in 1984 when Ralph passed away due to a sudden aneurysm.

Mary was a true fashionista. She had a sense of style and class that was stunning and timeless. Her most treasured possessions in her life were her children, her friends, her animals and her faith. She was an artist, doing portraits of family and friends. She was passionate about cooking and with a house full of boys, she made everything in double or triple batches. She loved Julia Childs and swore by her motto, ‘If you’re afraid of butter, use cream!’ She wrote and published three novels called “The Wet Walkers, Volumes 1, 2 & 3.” She was generous to a fault. She saw the best in everyone and always built people up and complemented them often. In her last days, she surprised the chaplain that would visit her. The chaplain said that  she inquired as to how Mary was doing, but instead of talking about herself, she was insistently asking the chaplain how SHE was doing. She was a true creative in every corner of her life, and that included her sense of humor. The things that would come out of her mouth were sometimes outrageous and a little shocking but she kept you in stitches constantly and was always so fun to be with. Her eldest son, Brock Married Pam Johnson and have been together almost 55 years.  Christian  married Robyn Colitti, had 3 daughters and 2 grandsons.  Her youngest, Cameron married PJ Faulstick. Cameron and PJ have been Mom's main financial support for the past 15 years which  enabled her to continue her upscale lifestyle to the very end. 💙💚

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