Funeral Service: will be held on Tuesday, April 20, 2004 at 11:00 a.m. at the Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Miles City
Interment: will follow in the Eastern Montana State Veterans Cemetery in Miles City
Joan Smisson, age 66, of Miles City passed away on Wednesday, April 14, 2004 at Saint Vincent Hospital in Billings.
Joan was born on November 17, 1937 in Watertown, South Dakota the daughter of Albert and Margaret (Kranz) Fox. She attended grade school and high school in Watertown, South Dakota where she graduated from high school. Following high school, she attended St. Marys School of Nursing in Kansas City, Missouri where received her nursing degree. She then worked at the intensive care unit at St. Marys. She later transferred to the Veterans Hospital in Kansas City where she met Dr. David Smisson. They were married on September 24, 1960, in Farmer, South Dakota. David then enlisted into active duty where he served two years in the 101st Airborne. Due to an injury in the service, they moved to Augusta, Georgia where he completed his residency. They later moved to Minot, North Dakota where she served as Dr. Smissons office manager and nurse. In 1990, she moved to Miles City. Joan loved to volunteer and did over 1000 hours of volunteer work at the VA Nursing Home in Miles City.
Joan was a member of the Emmanuel Episcopal Church, VFW Auxiliary, and the DAV Auxiliary. Joan enjoyed working with her church and being with her children and grandchildren.
Joan is survived by her husband, Dr. David Smisson of Miles City, MT; two sons: Lieutenant Colonel David Smisson and his wife Stephanie Kyong of Soul, South Korea and Richard Michael Smisson and his wife Jennifer of Harris, MN; four daughters: Anne Marie Smisson of Minneapolis, MN; Sharon Lynn Hagel of Aliso Viejo, CA; Victoria Lea Evans and her husband Glen of Aliso Viejo, CA; and Angela Jane Meade and her husband Eric of Yorba Linda, CA; three brothers: Rev. Leonard David Fox of Vermillion, SD; Harold Duane Fox of Charleston, SC; and James Fox of South Dakota; and ten grandchildren.
She was preceded in death by her parents, two sisters, and four brothers.
Visitation will be held on Monday, April 19, 2004 in the chapel of Stevenson & Sons Funeral Home in Miles City. Family will receive friends on Monday from 4:00 to 7:00 p.m. Funeral services will be held on Tuesday, April 20, 2004 at 11:00 a.m. at the Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Miles City. Interment will follow in the Eastern Montana State Veterans Cemetery in Miles City. Condolences may be sent to the family by visiting www.stevensonandsons,com.
Should friends desire, memorials may be made to the VFW Club.
Service Schedule
Service Schedule
Share
D. Smisson Jr. says
Good afternoon. Thank you…for coming to say good bye to my mother. It brings great happiness to my family to see that mom is remembered…that she is loved, and that she will be missed. I am speaking first because I am the oldest…the firstborn. I must teach you about my mom. You are all here. But my audience is God, my mom and dad and my family. I need to use this opportunity of mom’s departure from here to speak about why she, and why we all are here in the first place. We are here to give glory to God.
My mom’s life is evidence of the Grace of God. Even though I was conceived during mom and dad’s honeymoon, she allowed me to be born. This is bad luck some one might say. The year is 1961, the year of Thalidomide…the drug that promised to stop morning sickness. She never took Thalidomide, which was untested on people. Dad was a doctor…and mom a nurse, they had easy access to the drug, but because they cared for me, it wasn’t worth the risk. This new drug, only months later was found to cause babies to be born missing arms and legs. Mom loved me before she knew me. She cared more for me, more than she cared for herself. I am alive and I have arms and legs because of my mom. Some might say this is good luck. I say it is evidence of the mercy of God.
Mom is also responsible for saving my sisters life. Anne Marie choked on food when she was very small. Dad and doctor Heidorn from up the street in Minot, worked for several minutes to get the food out, until finally, with my sister blue on the floor, they gave in to fate. But, my mom, crazy with desired, removed that food and a life was saved that day. She loved in ways that were beyond medicine, beyond professional opinion and beyond the expectations of others. Anne Marie, stand up.
Mom and Dad, the passionate people that they were, got pregnant again. This time, the doctors complained that she was getting too fat, and eating too much. The doctor eventually took an x-ray and found a second skull. Another set of twins they said. Later, when mom was getting too large, she and dad asked for another x-ray. This time, they found a third skull. In 1965, Triplets were a clear threat to mom’s life. Yet, mom sacrificed none of the children to reduce this threat. God was faithful, he made mom think of us first, and all three were born alive, and these girls are here today. Sherry, Angela and Vicky. These women are more evidence of Gods grace in mom’s life, even before her eventual salvation.
I testify today that I know that the mother of these 6 children is now in Heaven, in the presence of God. She is free from sin. She has no price to pay for the sins she committed during her life. Jesus paid the price in full. She is full of life and will remain in this condition, with the Savior, forever.
This claim is not based on my emotional hope or on my careful calculation showing that her good deeds somehow outnumber or outweigh the bad. Just like me, they probably don’t. Instead, my claim it is based on these truths of the Gospel.
• 1st The sovereign will of God. Exodus 33:19 God states: “I will have mercy upon whom I will have mercy. I will have compassion upon whom I will have compassion.” No where in these words is there a hint that I (the sinner) will seek his mercy or compassion. God, my creator will instead choose to “have compassion and mercy”.
• 2nd The blood of the savior Jesus Christ will cleanse a sinner from their sin. This cleansing delivers the soul from the deserved wrath of God and purchases for the sinner, the gift of eternal life. Revelation 1:5: He has freed us from our sin by his blood. John 3:16 says…For God so loved the world (sinners like us) that he gave his only begotten son (Jesus, the Messiah) so that who ever believes on the Messiah shall not perish, but have eternal life.” In other words, God so loved my mom that he gave his son up to die on the cross to pay the debt for her sin. He then went to her heart and by his Spirit, God alone softened her heart to the teachings of men like my brother Rick, who used the Word of God to plant seeds of understanding, which, in time, yielded the fruit of faith. Faith is yet another evidence of the grace of God.
• 3rd The dramatic change that occurred in my mother 6 years ago, and the amazing fruit that has been revealed in her life since that time. This fruit, or rather, these results are no surprise because God promises to make us lovers of God, and consequently we become better lovers of others. God made it possible for mom to reach out to her children and others in ways that were impossible when she was still unsaved, and headed for God’s punishment. I am glad that God has impressed upon me my extreme sinfulness. God reviews with me my sin from the past frequently. He also did this with mom. Because of this, we were frequently reminded of how terrible our sin was, and how much debt the Savior had forgiven us. This is a great benefit. A great friend once said “He or She who has been forgiven much…loves much.” If you claim to know God…if you believe you are going to heaven when you die…I ask you to review your sin with God. Be reminded how much you have been forgiven…and then love the Savior much. God loved my mom much…and I saw, through the way she struggled to love her children better and more effectively, that she loved Jesus much.
2 Corinthians 5:17…”Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come.” We are miraculously transformed from a rebellious enemy of God, into a child of God, eager to please the savior. We are all rebellious enemies of God, until he saves us. Ezekiel 36:26… God says…”I will give you a new heart, and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” God created in mom, a desire to serve him, and a desire to serve others. I could hear this in her quiet, loving voice and see it in the way she worked with my brothers and sisters to love them and encourage them. I heard of it from folks at the VA where she served by feeding the Altzheimer’s patients, man after man, until their death. Or until she could not walk any more.
God does not choose to save a sinner because of some good quality that the sinner has, or because God sees a productive future for them. He rather chooses because of his sovereign authority to choose. He chose mom, and then he used her remaining life to bring glory to himself. Today, to God be the glory for another soul that was saved, and for the spiritual fruit that has been produced.
Lisa Kammeyer says
Hi. Maybe you’ll remember me. I don’t know. My family lived next door to the house on, I think it was 3rd Ave. My dad was a doctor also. I am Lisa Kammeyer. You, David, used to chase me around the yard and sit on me. But at 4 pm (I think) the playing was over because Star Trek was on. The twins were my age. I always credit Ricky for teaching me to ride a bicycle. He was SO patient! He taught me on his green Schwinn. The twins were in my class at Ryan. The triplets were younger than me but, for whatever reason, I hung out with them the most. I was closest to Sherry. I wanted to have her over for dinner but your mom said I couldn’t just invite Sherry, I had to invite all three of them. I remember the shoes had the A’s, V’s and S’s in them. You guys had some kittens and your mom used to like to lightly bite their
paws. I remember the triplets and I were downstairs in the den and I was telling them that there was no such thing as Santa Clause. Your mom overheard me and called me into her office and basically told me to ‘zip it’. I remember when you guys built the pool. That was awesome! My family didn’t live there very long but somehow there’s tons of memories.