Dorothy Greer Smith, a teacher active in civic, social, and church groups who made friends across generations and was supportive of their endeavors, died Wednesday in Hospice of Northwest Ohio, South Detroit Avenue. She was 95.

She was in declining health only recently, her daughter, Carol, said.

Mrs. Smith continued to attend concerts, luncheons, and shows, said Ernestine Butler, a friend who accompanied her.

“She was very community minded, and she loved music and loved refinement,” Mrs. Butler said. “She was just a pleasure to meet. She was not feeble. She loved going.”

Mrs. Smith received a bachelor of science degree in physical education and public health from Tennessee Agricultural and Industrial College in Nashville, what is now Tennessee State University.

She was a substitute teacher in Richmond, Ind., where her husband, Dr. John R. Smith, had a medical practice. After the Smith family moved to Toledo in 1966, she taught for the Head Start program.

She’d served on the boards of Toledo Botanical Garden and the YWCA of Greater Toledo and received a recognition from Samuel G. Carson, chief executive of the former Toledo Trust Co., on her tenure as YWCA board president.

“She was very strong,” her daughter said. “She had strong opinions about what had been happening and voiced those. She wasn’t a woman who carried much fear.

“She was innovative. She always had an idea about something,” her daughter said. “She liked to entertain and to put together programs, and the programs she touched were always very successful.”

She was a member of the Toledo chapter of Girlfriends Inc.; Delta Sigma Theta Sorority; the Coterie, and the Study Club. She also was active in Third Baptist Church.

Mrs. Smith wrote in July, 1995, for Dossier, then a Blade weekly feature, that the accomplishment she cherished the most was “being able to assist and encourage many young people and several adults to attend and complete their college education.”

“My mother always had friends of all ages,” her daughter said. “She was a networker. If she saw someone who had a dream, and she knew someone who could help them with that dream, she would hook them up, and she would make people feel they could do what they wanted to do: You can reach your dream.”

Mrs. Smith aspired be an actor, her daughter said. In the Dossier feature, in response to “People may be surprised to know,” Mrs. Smith wrote: “That even at this age and stage, I still have dreams about performing theatrically.”

She was born March 16, 1921, in Asheville, N.C., to Etta Snead and William Henry Greer. She and her husband married Dec. 28, 1942. He died May 24, 2001. Her son Jon A. “Buddy” Rashid died in 1988.

Surviving are her daughter, Carol G. Smith; son, Dr. Craig S. Smith, sister, Sylvia James, six grandchildren, and four great grandchildren.

Visitation will be from 5-8 p.m. Tuesday in the Dale-Riggs Funeral Home Chapel, with Toledo chapter of Girlfriends Inc. services at 6 p.m.; Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Omega Omega services at 6:30 p.m., and Coterie and Study Hour clubs’ services at 7 p.m.

Funeral services will be at 11 a.m. Wednesday in Third Baptist Church, with a family hour at 10 a.m.

Contact Mark Zaborney at: mzaborney@theblade.com or 419-724-6182.

First Published June 27, 2016, 4:00 a.m.