THE area lost two fine individuals with the passing Jan. 14, 2013 of Lydia Reinert and of Leona Smith on Feb. 18, 2013.
Longtime readers of The Terrace Standard’s sports pages will be familiar with Smith.
An accomplished athlete, Smith competed for years in the track and field categories of the annual BC Seniors’ Games and at similar events, winning medals and setting world records for her age group.
Born in Oxbow, Saskatchewan on Dec. 30, 1927, Smith came to Terrace with her family in 1966.
Reinert arrived in the northwest with her family in 1967, first to Kitimat and then to Terrace.
She was born in a particularly troubled time in world history – July 28, 1940 near Warsaw, Poland, not even a year after that country was invaded first by Nazi Germany and then partitioned by the Germans and by the Soviet Union.
In Terrace, Reinert spent 22 years (practically until her death) working for Choices, the agency which assists adults and children with developmental disabilities.
That Leona Smith and Lydia Reinert each made contributions to their community in their own ways well into their senior years speaks much about who they were as individuals.
Their contributions also speak much about their generation and as each one of that generation passes, we’re left both poorer from their departure but richer for what they did.