Funeral services for Margaret Clementine Kulicka Smythe, 98, of Greenville will be at 11:00 a.m.Wednesday, April 18 at St. John’s Episcopal Church, Leland. She died Monday, April 16, at her home. Burial will be in the Greenville Cemetery under the direction of Boone Funeral Home, Greenville.
A lifelong resident of Washington County, Margaret was born September 13, 1919, the daughter of Olga Pfeifer von Forstheim and Otto Carl Kulicka. She married Daniel Lafayette Smythe in 1939 and moved to Tribbett where they raised four children. It was there that Margaret developed a passion and love of gardening. Never very interested in the botanical names of the plants, she knew the journeys they had made from other local gardens. Any mention of the fall-blooming white spider lilies received the response, “Oh, those were Evelyn Hall’s”. When she and Dan moved back to Greenville in the early 1990s, she created another much smaller garden that was documented for the Archives of American Gardens at the Smithsonian Institution. Each garden showcased her innate sense of the right plant in the right place with the right companions. Always a generous gardener, many of her plants survive in the gardens of her family and friends.
Margaret was also an avid and skilled bridge player and was the last surviving original member of a bridge club formed in the 1940s. When a substitute was needed, Dan frequently and willingly joined the group as “Diane”.
Margaret was predeceased by her husband, her youngest son, William Randolph Smythe, and her oldest grandchild, Daniel Lafayette Smythe II. She will be lovingly remembered and missed by her children, Daniel Lafayette Smythe, Jr., and his wife Gaye of Bedford, Massachusetts; Hebe Smythe Splane of Leland; and Frederick Joseph Smythe and his wife Sherry of Tribbett and her 10 grandchildren and 15 great grandchildren.
Margaret was blessed by the love and care of Jessie M. Rankins, Estella Jakewell, and Vera Scott. The family is grateful for their thoughtfulness, generosity, and quiet compassion.
Pallbearers are Ralph McGee, Humphreys McGee, Billy Percy, and Margaret’s grandsons, Dan Smythe III, Will Smythe, and Carter Smythe.
In lieu of flowers memorial donations may be made to St. John’s Episcopal Church or a charity of the donor’s choice.