Genevieve Hearne Smith
Genevieve passed quietly away in her sleep the evening of December 1, 2018 at the age of 98.
She was the middle of three daughters, born July 2, 1920, in Rosedale, Kentucky to school teachers Charles Edison Smith and Hannah Hearne Smith.
The family moved to Cincinnati around 1925. After graduation from Hughes High School, she attended the University of Cincinnati, completing her Bachelors of Business Administration in 1943. While at U.C. she worked in President Raymond Walters office doing surveys for him and also co-oped with Union Central Life Insurance.
From 1944-1946 she worked in the Ferrying Division of the Army Air Corps assisting mostly women pilots (who flew new planes wherever they were needed during the war).
From 1947-1957 she worked as a statistician at Oak Ridge Laboratories, Tennessee doing data analysis. Her data helped lay the groundwork for the vital Cost of Living Index used by the federal government in many ways. From1957 until her retirement in 1980 she was Head of the Management Analysis Division at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio in the Air Force
Logistics Command. Her position included keeping track of the maintenance and whereabouts of the hundreds of planes there.
Her family and her church, Clifton United Methodist Church, were very important to her. She loved her extensive exotic overseas travel, singing in choirs (especially U.C.’s Messiah Chorus in her youth and later in the Belles and Beaux Chorus at Twin Towers), attending musical events, and doing volunteer work. She was generous to her family, and in her later years she was involved in philanthropy to organizations like the Cincinnati Opera, the renovation of Music Hall, the Cincinnati Symphony, the Cincinnati Zoo, the University of Cincinnati- College of Business, Twin Towers, and her church. She also devoted many years to caring for family members in need. She and her sister Charlotte Elizabeth–her beloved sister Betsy–served the immigrant community as Travelers’ Aid volunteers teaching recent arrivals for over a decade.
She is mourned by her friends and so fondly remembered as a wonderful caring aunt by her many nieces and nephew. A memorial service will be held at the Chapel at Twin Towers Senior Living Community (5343 Hamilton Ave., Cincinnati) December 12, 2018 at 11 AM (with an internment of her ashes at Arlington Memorial Gardens at a future date).
In lieu of flowers please send contributions to the Freestore Foodbank in Cincinnati (freestorefoodbank.org, 513-241-1064), or to the charity of your choice.
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