Nora (Moore) Smith passed away Aug. 16, 2021, in Dallas, Texas, at the age of 104.
She was born in Wilber on Aug. 8, 1917, to Frank and Mary Moore (Znamenacek), where she grew up on the family farm with four brothers. Nora graduated from Wilber High School with the Class of 1935. She met her husband of 69 years, Wilson Smith, at The Sokol Hall in Wilber’s local dances and they dated for 13 years. Nora and Wilson married April 1, 1944, at the United Methodist Church in Greenville, South Carolina, while he was active in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II. Her first son, Ronald, was born in Lincoln in 1945. Discharged after the war, Wilson earned a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Nebraska. Nora and Wilson moved to Seattle, Washington, in 1949, where he had accepted a job with the Boeing Company. Nora’s second son, Gary, was born in 1959. They moved to Huntsville, Alabama, in 1964 for Boeing and returned to Seattle again in 1969.
Nora also worked as an administrative secretary to the president of the Bankers Life Insurance Company in Lincoln and continued administrative secretary positions with the Industrial Engineering Company of the Boeing Company and the personnel department of the Washington Mutual Savings Bank, both of Seattle.
Nora and Wilson enjoyed traveling, especially to Hawaii, and to visit friends and family throughout the United States. They retired in 1981 and moved to Laguna Hills, California. Nora spent years researching her family genealogy and was certified as a regularly approved member of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, in June of 1995. She volunteered with DAR and she also researched Wilson’s family genealogy where they ended up traveling to the Czech Republic.
Nora and Wilson wanted to be closer to family so they moved to Fort Collins, Colorado, in 1993 and to Dallas, Texas, in 2010. Her husband, Wilson, died in 2013. She is survived by her two sons, Ronald and Gary, five grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
Nora was cremated at her request and her ashes will be buried with Wilson's at the Wilber Czech Cemetery this summer.
