Rosanne Smith Obituary

Rosanne Jameson Smith, 76, of Watkinsville, Georgia, died at home April 8, after a long pulmonary illness.

Born in Wilkes-Barre, Aug. 17, 1948, she was educated at Wyoming Seminary and is a graduate of the Emma Willard School, Troy, N.Y. She earned her B.Ed. at Mills College in 1970 and a M.Ed. in 1972, at Governors State University.

She lived in Chicago and Nantucket, Mass., where she worked as a special-education teacher until 1993, when she moved to Kerala, India. She lived at the Amritapuri Ashram to study with the Indian spiritual leader known as Amma. Rosanne developed her sense of community service by living and working at the ashram.

She returned to the U.S. and settled in Watkinsville, Ga. But she spent her summers on Nantucket where her family had had homes for several generations. Her grandmother, Marjorie Harvey Smith, was a co-founder of the Wyoming Valley Art League in Wilkes-Barre.

Rosanne will also be remembered for her love of puns and dogs, with a penchant for adopting strays.

She is survived by her wife, Laura Rose, whom she met in India at the ashram in 1993; her three sisters, Barbara DeWitt Smith, of Dallas, Penna.; Marjorie Harvey Smith, of San Jose, Calif.; Elizabeth Simons Smith, of Florence, Mass.; and her stepmother Dorothy Smith, of Key Biscayne, Fla., and Siasconset, Mass.

She was predeceased by her sister, Susan Smith; her mother, Margaret Simons Smith; and her father, Harrison Harvey Smith, president of the Wilkes-Barre Publishing Company.