LAURINBURG - Leah R. Smith passed away peacefully on Sunday, February 10, 2013, at Scotia Village. Born on January 3, 1913 in Benton Harbor, Michigan, to Fred and Kathryn Rosenbaum, Leah Loretta Rosenbaum Smith was a pioneer in many ways. She had a professional career, unusual for a woman in mid-twentieth century, at the same time raising two daughters, Leah and Kathryn. In her later years, she traveled extensively , making her a rare women among her contemporaries. As a young girl, she worked alongside her parents, brother Gordan, and sister Kathryn on the family's fruit farm. Entering high school at 13, she drove herself back and forth to school - the only girl who did. Declaring early, and supported firmly by her mother, that she did not want to be a farmer's wife, she embarked on a medical career immediately after graduating from high school. Entering nurse's training at 17, she worked & studied in Detroit and Ann Arbor, ultimately qualifying as a nurse anesthetist In September, 1939, she headed to Virginia to take a position as a nurse anesthetist in Norfolk, and, except for a brief period back at home in 1942, lived the rest of her 100 years in the South. Even so, at her 95th birthday party she still called herself a "Damn Yankee!" In January, 1943 she married her Norfolk roommate's brother, Farquhard (Buck) Smith, and moved to Fayetteville, NC, where he worked at Fort Bragg with Carolina Telephone Company. Their first daughter, Leah Loretta, was born in 1943 and their second, Kathryn Elizabeth, in 1947. Soon after, Leah resumed her career, beginning as the only nurse anesthetist at the Fayetteville Veteran's Hospital, where she was a key part of the surgery team until retiring in 1974. During these years of working and raising a family, she and Buck became an integral part of the community, both serving in many capacities at Peace Presbyterian Church. They instilled in both daughters a love of music and a lust for travel, setting an example, once both were retired, of taking many trips in the USA and Canada. Widowed in 1977, Leah continued her work at Peace Presbyterian and is especially remembered for founding their Crismon program. During this period and after she moved in 1989 to Scotia Village, a retirement community in Laurinburg, she learned to swim, was an avid bowler, continued attending many cultural events and expanded her travel to Europe and Africa as well as many more USA sites. She is survived by her daughters Leah Solat and Kathryn Rosenberg, their husbands Norman Solat and Ralph Rosenberg, five grandchildren - Brian Steele, Tristan Sylvester, Andrea Solat Amonick, Karen Jabo, and Larry Solat, 9 great-grandchildren - Quinlan & Dahlia Steele, Aidan & Jasper Sylvester, Amelia & Madeline Amonick, and Jacqueline, Jeremy & Ethan Solat, and brother Gordan Rosenbaum. Services will be held at 10:30am on Thursday, February 14, 2013, at Peace Presbyterian Church in Fayetteville, NC. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to Hospice of Scotland County. Funeral: 11am Thursday, February 14 at Peace Presbyterian Church Burial: Following service at Lafayette Memorial Park