November 2022
Christian and Sheri finished up their soccer seasons. Neither was super thrilled with their team arrangements. Both leagues had difficulty finding enough players in their age groups and so there was a large age spread for Christian. Sheri's team didn't have many teams to play. Hopefully we can find some better leagues next season. It was still fun to participate for the most part.
Dad’s love of learning began early, encouraged
by his mother, Natalie, who was a teacher and his father, Kenneth, who was
denied the opportunity of higher education but sought out learning throughout
his life. Dad’s parents worked to make sure that Dad could get a higher
education.
Dad believed education to be the solution to
many societal ills and he pursued his own education with energy and dedication.
He was an outstanding student and served as president of his high school’s
National Honor Society. Dad was blessed
with wonderful mentors that encouraged and guided him in his studies. He excelled in college at BYU, and was
accepted into the nation’s most prestigious economics program at the University
of Chicago, where he earned a PhD in Economics.
He began his career at the University of
Houston and stayed there for 38 years, becoming an expert in his field, a
sought out consultant, an innovative leader, a committed teacher and a beloved
colleague. He served as Department Chair and as Director of the university’s
Center for Public Policy. He gained national
and local recognition for his economic analyses, conducting two symposiums each
year on Houston’s economy and real estate markets. In 1999, he established the
Institute for Regional Forecasting and led the Institute until his retirement.
This institute continues to provide Houston with business and economic
expertise critical to the Houston business community.
Dad received the Lifetime Achievement Award
from the Houston Business Journal, and was recognized for “being able to
translate complicated academic research into language that is understood by the
masses.”
In an interview with local media, Dad was
asked what he enjoyed most about his career, and he responded without
hesitation that he loved teaching. Since his passing, we have received notes
from students who worked with him who described how they changed their major to
economics after taking his classes. Dad
didn’t necessarily believe that economics was everything, but he saw economics
in everything and helped his students catch that same vision.
Dad came to see the gospel of Jesus Christ in
everything as well. While a young man, his parents had brief contact with
missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. One evening
during a winter blizzard, missionaries knocked on their door and Kenneth
invited them in to allow them to warm up. The missionaries shared their
beliefs. Natalie chose to continue to listen to their lessons and whenever Dad
wasn’t at one of his high school sporting events he would listen as well. The
missionaries invited Dad to play basketball with the young men at church. The
friendship of these young men encouraged Dad to learn more about the gospel and
he decided to be baptized into the church.
As he was finishing up high school Dad, like
many of the young men in his ward, was determined to get accepted to Brigham
Young University. His parents thought
that he had applied to Oregon State, but he put all of his hope into BYU, and
didn’t apply to any other university.
Luckily, or blessedly, he did get accepted to BYU and received a
four-year scholarship, which helped his parents respect his decision to go to
Utah for his education. Dad would go home to Oregon for the summers to work and
he eventually earned enough money to serve a full-time mission for the church.
He was assigned to serve in the Great Lakes Mission which included Michigan,
Ohio, and Indiana. His mission blessed and influenced the rest of his life, and
he continued serving in the Church in various callings. He especially enjoyed working with the youth,
serving as a young men’s president for many years. One of the YM he worked with in Houston told
us this week, “I will always remember the love and concern he showed to a bunch
of rowdy teens, and he led by example in all that he did - a mighty man who
truly had a humble heart.” While living
in Estes Park his love of teaching shone through while serving as Gospel
Doctrine teacher and Elders Quorum president.
Dad loved to serve wherever he was needed.
BYU provided Dad with a strong gospel
foundation, and prepared him very well for a successful academic career. But he would be the first to note that the
greatest blessing from his time at BYU was meeting Mom. As a young man, he had decided he wanted a strong
marriage and a happy family, and was committed to that goal above all others.
When Dad met Mom, he was smitten right away.
He had heard her speak in a church sacrament meeting and was impressed. When
his roommate needed someone to go home teaching at mom’s college dorm, he
happily volunteered. It took him a couple months to get up the courage to ask
her out. But they went on three dates in a row in January. Before the semester
ended, they were engaged. Dad had waited
until he received word that he had been accepted to a paid position before
asking Wendy to be his wife. He wanted to be sure he could support her well and
he has ever since. They both went home to work for the summer, Dad in Oregon
and Mom in Illinois. They wrote to each other with an occasional phone call.
After 4 months of being apart, they saw each other only days before the wedding
on September 9, 1968. They stayed
another year at BYU before heading to Chicago for Dad’s graduate school. They
had been encouraged to wait a bit before having children, but after a General Conference
talk that encouraged having children and not waiting, they decided to go ahead
and grow their family. And Dad always said that was the best decision that they
made. Michael and Kelly were born in
Chicago, and Jeff, Matthew, and Katherine were born in Houston.
Dad showed in word and deed that no other
endeavor or accomplishment meant more to him than family. Most of what his
children know about how to love, we learned from Dad. The last words he said to
Mom, after telling her that he loved her, were “I want you to tell our children
how much I love them.” We always knew he
loved us with all his heart.
As our family grew, so did his love, amd he
welcomed each new spouse of his children with open arms. He loves Tara, Mar,
Stacey, Beckie, and Rodolfo like his own (maybe even more), and his
grandchildren filled his later years with joy.
Dad was also destined to love plants. He spent
summers with his grandpa Neer who was a botany teacher and loved creating
flower gardens. Dad’s mom Natalie enjoyed the blessings of fruit and vegetables
from her garden. His kids remember many Saturdays spent as a family pulling
weeds and working in the yard. The
hardest thing for him towards the end of his life was to feel so exhausted that
he couldn’t get out to take care of his plants. Perhaps one of Dad’s greatest
memorials will be the beautiful flowers and forest of trees that now surround
the dome home in Estes Park.
Out of necessity when traveling to visit
family across country, Dad and Mom would camp along the way. This tradition of
camping and Dad’s love for the outdoors
continued throughout his life as his family grew. Dad loved to plan trips to
get to know the many beauties of this earth. These long road trips created time
to really bond as a family. Sometimes
frustrations with the kids bickering and annoying each other, got the best of -
or worst of - Dad. But we learned to be
patient with each other. Sitting around a campfire always seemed the perfect
way to bask in our love for each other.
Dad had a wonderful knack for making simple
objects magically fun. He would grab a
set of sticks from the forest, wave them around in the air or use them to draw
nonsense in the dirt, creating a favorite fireside entertainment for his kids. The number of games that Dad could make up
with a simple 15 foot piece of rope seemed endless. His games often stretched physical agility
and tested wit. On a rainy camping trip,
a wet tent that needed to be dried in a hurry could be seen parachuting up and
down the campground roads, having inevitably ended up becoming a game. Regardless of the game, no one could resist
smiling and chuckling at Dad for his hoots and hollers that he’d make as he
expressed his intensity during the heat of the competition.
We couldn’t end Dad’s eulogy without
mentioning his love of sailing. In a way sailing brought learning, teaching,
and family all together for Dad. When he decided he wanted to learn how to
sail, he put the same passion into reading and studying, taking a sailing
course, and preparing to captain his own yacht.
He taught his kids how to sail through example, practice, and trust.
Many of our favorite family vacations came to revolve around a sailing trip -
in the San Juan Islands, Alaska, Greece, Turkey, the Virgin Islands, and
British Columbia.
Barton Smith will be missed for the many
contributions he made to community, church, and family. His life of learning and teaching, serving
and loving, has touched many. We’re grateful
and happy to know that he now continues to learn and teach at a whole new
level. We know he continues to
serve. And his love, for which we are
all so grateful, endures forever.
We are grateful for so many that were able to come and support our family!
Unfortunately, due to the holiday weekend the burial had to be scheduled for the following Monday when most of the family would already be gone.
The rest of the evening was spent enjoying our time together and remembering how blessed we are to be a family. We love playing games together as did Bart.
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