Francis W. K. “Bill” Smith ’47

Francis W. K. “Bill” Smith ’47, died February 15, 2013, in Lexington, Mass. He was born in Boston on March 29, 1927, and prepared for college at Somerville (Mass.) High School and Wilbraham Academy. He was a member of Zeta Psi fraternity and went on to graduate from Harvard Law School in 1950. He joined the law firm of A.I. Bicknell in 1950 and was a partner in the newly named Bicknell & Smith from 1954 to 1960, when he went into private practice. He returned to Bicknell & Smith in 1970 and ran the practice for decades. He served fourteen months in the Navy at the end of World War II, attaining the rank of midshipman. He tirelessly served the Town of Lexington, as a Town Meeting member for more than twenty-six years, on the Conservation Commission for more than twenty years and on the Zoning Board of Appeals for fifteen. He was an active member of Hancock Church in the 1950s and 1960s and was a member of the Tandem Club and the Men’s Club. He was the Sunday School Superintendent and performed in many of the dramatic productions that Hancock produced, including The Diary of Anne Frank. He was an avid squash player and a member of the University Club of Boston for many years. He served as president of the Rotary Club of Cambridge and was a three-time Paul Harris Fellow. He had more than thirty-five years of perfect weekly attendance at Rotary meetings. He was a president of the Lexington Chapter of the John Abbott Lodge, trustee of the Somerville Home for the Aged, director of Cambridge Visiting Nurses Association, director of the Friends of the Cambridge Council on Aging, and director of the Cambridge Chamber of Commerce. In 1970, he bought Butternut Farm in Warner, N.H., where he and his wife gardened and raised goats, chickens, and horses. He lived with Parkinson’s disease for sixteen years and regularly participated in the Unity Walk in New York City. He is survived by sons Dwight Fraser and Francis Smith; daughter Laurie Smith Peck; and four grandchildren. He was predeceased by his wife, Jacquelyn R. Berwald Smith, whom he married on September 9, 1952.

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