Donald R. Smith
Donald R. Smith of Manhattan and East Hampton died on Nov. 5 of prostate cancer, which was diagnosed 22 years ago. He was 80.
He was a keen outdoorsman, climbing Mount Rainier in Washington State and hiking the John Muir Trail through the Sierra Nevada range in California, biking (especially in France), windsurfing, and sailing.
Mr. Smith kept boats in Accabonac Harbor from 1986, when he first started spending time in East Hampton, until 2015. He enjoyed sailing his catboat, Chat Botte, with his wife, children, and friends, his family said. He was proud of his garden and also was an eager reader, particularly of history. He became a skilled photographer, documenting events first at his high school and later on during his many trips throughout the United States and Europe, taking special delight in training his lens on his children and grandchildren.
As a young man, his family said, Mr. Smith traveled all over Europe working at various jobs — picking fruit and planting truffle oaks in Provence, and toiling at a steel factory in Sweden to pay for extended winter skiing in Austria.
Donald Smith was born in Oakland, Calif., in November 1937 to the former Mina Knowles and Theodore R. Smith. He grew up in the San Francisco Bay area, including Alamo and Carmel-by-the-Sea, graduating from San Ramon Valley High School. He went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in history in 1959 from the California State University at Berkeley. He lived in San Francsico between 1961 and 1970, when he moved to Manhattan.
He worked at the Federal Reserve Bank in San Francisco for five years, in information technology at Tenneco Chemicals in Berkeley and Piscataway, N.J., and at Citibank in Manhattan. From 1995 to 2002, Mr. Smith was a consultant at the United Nations, which gave him a U.N. 21 award, honoring his exemplary initiative.
He married Christine Lemarchand on April 24, 1971. They bought a house in East Hampton in 1986. She survives. With their children, the couple traveled to California and Europe, especially northern France, to visit extended family. In 2014, Mr. Smith took a monthlong trip to the West Coast national parks he had visited as a child with his parents. Mr. Smith enjoyed spending time with his three grandchildren, “discussing their achievements and telling them stories,” his family said.
Mr. Smith was cremated. There was a private funeral. In addition to his wife and three grandchildren, his two daughters, Caroline O’Connell of Topsfield, Mass., and Emilie Smith of Chicago, survive, as do six brothers-in-law and five sisters-in-law in France.