Lois Cecilia Smith
Sept. 2, 1924-March 15, 2017
Palo Alto, California
Submitted by Robert Smith

Lois Cecilia Smith (nee Young) passed away peacefully on March 15, 2017. She was 92. Born in Hinton, Iowa, on September 2, 1924, Lois was the eldest of three children of Elmer Young and Anna Young (nee Woolworth). Lois attended grammar school and high school in Hinton. She graduated from the School of Nursing at the University of Nebraska in 1946, and then left the Midwest for Tulare California. After a few years working in California, she and a few friends moved to the wild territory of Alaska. She then returned to the University of Nebraska, College of Medicine and received a Bachelor’s of Science in Nursing in 1952. Lois returned back to California and worked at the Children’s Hospital of the East Bay in Oakland California (now the Children’s Hospital of Oakland). She met her future husband, Stanley Smith and got married on September 18, 1955. They moved to Palo Alto, where Stanley attended graduate school at Stanford and Lois worked as a nurse at the Stanford Home for Convalescent Children (now the Lucille Salter Packard Children’s Hospital) until her first child was born. After that, Lois stayed at home and raised three sons, Ronald, Richard and Robert. As a family they enjoyed camping, traveling throughout California and attending Stanford football games. Lois loved opera and was a long time subscriber to the SF Opera and the West Bay Opera in Palo Alto. She also enjoyed sewing, cooking and gardening. Both Stanley and Lois were Fellows of The First United Methodist Church, Palo Alto. When her sons were in middle school, she went back to nursing and worked at the Stanford Hoover Pavilion hospital for many years. After retiring from Stanford, she and Stanley enjoyed traveling. They traveled throughout the United States, Europe and Mexico. They particularly enjoyed ocean cruising and on their last trip they circumnavigated the world. She is survived by her three sons, Ronald and his wife Janet of Saratoga, Richard and his wife Sissela of Palo Alto, Robert and his wife Catherine of Saratoga, two granddaughters, Kyra and Annika, and her sister Ina Mae Butler of Bakersfield.