Mae Elizabeth Smith was born to Rubell and James Smith on April 12, 1948 in Fayetteville, North Carolina. She grew to be a great athlete, a loving sister, wife, mother, grandmother, business woman, and a patriotic American.
Her childhood was spent as a farm girl working on the family farm in Greys Creek, North Carolina, with her three sisters, attending Mount Pisgah Church, graduating Greys Creek High School and excelling in basketball and softball.
Upon graduating, Mae began her professional life as a business woman and began a new family tradition of innovation and service to the nation, when she joined Piedmont Airlines, as an Airline Travel Agent in 1969. Mae worked fourteen years for Piedmont Airlines and US Airways, during which time she was instrumental in implementing several important operational innovations to the companies, to include fielding and training staff members on the first computerized airline reservation and ticketing system, and loading and unloading three new, higher capacity aircraft, the Fairchild F-27, the Japanese built YS-11 and the Boeing 737-200 jet aircraft. Mae was awarded a five-year service pin and numerous certificates of appreciation and cash awards for her outstanding service to the companies in a period of tremendous growth in the airline industry in America.
Mae Smith met and married Lieutenant Boyd Dale Parsons Jr. in Fayetteville NC in 1974. They had two sons, Brian Wesley and Gregory Scott Parsons. The new Parsons family, travelled the world together for the next twenty-five years, living the Gypsy life of the military family and moving 18 times.
During the period 1989-1992, Mae worked in the Scheduled Airline Ticket Offices at Fort Bragg , NC, and Fort Campbell, KY, where she was afforded the opportunity to serve the American Armed Forces by providing commercial airline services to service men and women returning from combat in Panama and Kuwait. She cherished her important tasks to return these young men and women to their homes, families and loved ones after these two back-to-back combat deployments.
Mae continued her career another 13 years as a travel agent until the year 2005, when she retired.
In 1997, Mae went back to night school to get her 4-year college degree. In May of 2002, Mae graduated from Methodist University with her degree in Business Administration at 54 years of age.
Son Brian grew to serve 20 years in the Army as a Command Pilot and had one grandchild, Meghan Elizabeth Parsons. In 2021 Brian met and married his second wife Heather and added a second step child by marriage, Mackensie. Together they built a profitable real estate company in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
Son Gregory pursued a life of innovation, earned his Doctor of Philosophy degree in computer engineering from NC State University and continues to invent new computer chip and sensor technologies every year with Geophex Limited in Raleigh NC.
Mae and Boyd remained happily married for almost 50 years until August 31, 2024, when she died of pneumonia at the age of 76 in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
She will be sorely missed.
May God love her, bless her and keep her safe Forever and Always!
This obituary was published by Smith Family Funeral & Cremation Services LLC.
This obituary was published by Obituaries provided free for the community.
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