This was supposed to run in Sunday's paper but some are telling us they did not see it. On November 11, 1999, Sara Margaret Paxton Smith died in San Antonio, Texas. She was born September 9, 1917 in Matthews, Mecklenberg County, North Carolina. She was the granddaughter of William Sanford Paxton and his wife Margaret Ann McLeod and Isaac David Boyd and his wife Sarah Nancy Smith Boyd. Her parents were John McLeod Paxton and Janie Faires Boyd Paxton. She graduated from Queens College in Charlotte, North Carolina in 1938. For 11 years, she taught in different schools all over North Carolina. Two of those schools were Sharon High School and the high school in Whiteville. During the summer months she earned extra money by working at Belks and Iveys. She met my father, Cecil Gaddis Smith of Stanly County, while teaching in Whiteville. While teaching, she coached basketball, mainly for the girls teams, but during WWII she had the distinction of becoming the first female coach of a male basketball team when she pitched in to coach the boys team at the high school she was teaching at when they were left without a coach. After marriage, she became a true marriage partner to my dad, traveling to Venezuela first and later to Mexico, staying at home and raising four children in not always the best of conditions. When other mothers were playing bridge, she was the one with their children, playing games, teaching, baking, driving, supervising and advocating. When someone had a problem, it was always my mom who was asked to intervene because everyone knew she would do it. After her children left home, she stayed by my father's side and retired to San Antonio, Texas to be near her four children and her two grand daughters. She and my father became surrogate grandparents to a host of children they came in contact with and she worried about each child as if they were her own, giving sound advice to inexperienced parents upon occasion. She was everything a mom was supposed to be and she will be truly missed by all. Her fortunate daugther, Nancy Jane Smith Ward