6/26/1947 – 4/20/2025
Lawrence
Never one to color between the lines, Bradford (Brad) Smith left us on short notice on April 20th, 2025, after a short but brave fight against acute myeloid leukemia-MRC, leaving all of us eternally wondering what his next move might have been.
Born in Garnett, Kansas to Claude and Zona Smith, he was the second baby brother to his older sister Claudette, and a playmate for older brother Greg. Claudette married Bud Martin, and Greg married Donna Handegard, and their children Jan (Jim Decker), Diane (Brian Whitney), Michael (Mary), Jeff (Julie), Brian (Jenifer) and Cindy (Conrad Mast) brought a lifetime of joy and laughter (along with all of their kids, and kids’ kids) to Brad when he had the chance to visit.
After an involuntary stint in the military, in which he was honored for helping restore communications for the USS Pueblo, he returned home to his young bride Susan (Jones), and not long after they had their daughter Kristen (Kris) Leigh. The couple spent a short stint out in Boulder Colorado until Brad decided driving cement trucks through mountain passes in the winter wasn’t his thing. They made the decision to come back to Lawrence, where he went back to college at the University of Kansas and got his degree in Business Administration, while also working full time. Many nights a bedtime story was read to Kris, before off to work the overnight shift he went. He graduated in 1977.
Brad and Susan were married 9 years before they parted ways. A second marriage to Janette Christian Goulder was also fleeting, although the memory of the wedding in Vegas is a fun one for Kris. Brad lived all over the country and worked for various companies from Houston to Omaha to Los Angeles, for companies including Exxon, American Express, and Northrop Grumman where they worked top secret to build the B2 stealth bomber. California became his second home, and he spent well over 20 years working and residing there, spending time with cousins Joe and Bobbie Jo Ayala and friends, and would continue to spend frequent winters there even after he moved back to Kansas to be closer to his daughter Kris (Craven) and grandsons Joel and Nathan. Along with his extensive work in software and computer security, Brad also enjoyed side stints sailing boats along the West Coast as far north as Vancouver, driving a limo in LA (yes, there are stories), acting as an extra in various TV shows and movies (including the West Wing and Joe Dirt), and finding his way into working or volunteering at many golf events. He got a chance to make a big trip to Europe thanks to friends he made in Mercedes Benz travel groups and make his pilgrimage to St. Andrews.
He retired in recent years, and spent endless hours helping his daughter and grandsons fix up things around the house, working on way too many cars, and being a presence in his grandsons’ and daughter’s lives for everything from rides to swim lessons to playing computer games.
He saw the world a little differently than many of us – but perhaps that was his superpower.
A celebration of life will be planned at a later date.
The treatment for his short bout with leukemia required many, many rounds of blood and platelet donations. If you would like to make a donation in his memory, please consider becoming a blood or platelet donor through https://www.savealifenow.org/ or https://www.redcrossblood.org/, or make a monetary donation to the Kansas City Hospice House at https://kchospice.org/donate/ who helped him through end-of-life care.
Special thanks to the amazing doctors and nurses at LMH Oncology who rallied hard behind Brad and this terrible disease, and to the staff at Kansas City Hospice House and the crew of staff station B who helped him leave the world as comfortably as possible.
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