Charles W. Smith

A Celebration of Life Service for Charles W. “Charlie” Smith, 73, Tonganoxie, formerly of Ozawkie, will be at 3 p.m. Saturday at Oskaloosa United Methodist Church, with Masonic rites conducted by Oskaloosa Lodge No. 14 and American Legion honors conducted by Post No. 225. Cremation is planned. Inurnment will be at a later date at Leavenworth National Cemetery.
Mr. Smith died Monday, Nov. 16, 2009, at Providence Medical Center in Kansas City, Kan.
He was born April 2, 1936, in Linn County, near Mapleton, the son of Louis W. and Irmal Irene Cowan Smith. He attended schools in Blue Mound.
Mr. Smith had lived in Tonganoxie for eight years, moving from Ozawkie, where he had lived since 1979.
He served in the U.S. Army as a chief warrant officer from 1958 until he retired in 1978. Mr. Smith then worked at the Western Area Distribution Center for the U.S. Postal Service in Topeka for 19 years.
He was a member of American Legion Post No. 225 in Ozawkie and a charter member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Meriden Post No. 10815. He was a member of the Oskaloosa Masonic Lodge No. 14 A.F. & A.M., the Arab Shrine in Topeka and the Order of Eastern Star Chapter 62 of Oskaloosa.
He married Dolores L. Poos on Aug. 1, 1958, in Miami, Okla. She survives, of the home.
Other survivors include his mother, Blue Mound; a son, Sgt. Maj. Terence Smith, Georgetown, Texas; a daughter, Kandi White, Tonganoxie; a brother, Dan Smith, Fort Scott; a sister, Barbara Michael, Blue Mound; and four grandchildren.
The family suggests memorials to Jefferson County Friends of Hospice, sent in care of Barnett-Chapel Oaks Funeral Home, P.O. Box 416, Oskaloosa, KS 66066.