Doris Jean Smith

Doris Jean Smith, 88, of Leesburg, Virginia, died peacefully of natural causes on Friday, December 14, 2018 at the Lake Manassas Health and Rehabilitation Center in Gainesville, Virginia.

She was born Doris Jean Duff on September 5, 1930 in Uniontown, Fayette County, Pennsylvania, the only child of Carl H. and Alice (Anderson) Duff.  The family moved to Steubenville, Ohio in 1935 where Doris graduated from Steubenville High School in 1948. Doris excelled in music, both voice and piano, and he went on to study music at Milligan College.

It was at Milligan College that Doris met and married Joe Crain of Erwin, Tennessee, a US Army Veteran of World War Two and member of the Milligan football team.  The couple later relocated to Falls Church, Virginia where Doris worked for the new National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).  The couple had two children, Judith Lynne Crain and Joseph Hunter Crain.

The couple divorced in 1960 and, soon thereafter, Doris and the children were relocated to the Cape Canaveral, Florida area where she was an Executive Assistant to a NASA Deputy Administrator responsible for astronaut health.  She remained there throughout the years of the exciting early Mercury missions.  Doris and children were returned to Washington in 1964, and she went on to a 30-year career with Administrators of the space agency.

Doris married her life's love, Roger Cameron Smith of Bermuda, in 1973. The couple was together 43 years until Roger's sudden death in 2016.  They lived in downtown Leesburg, Virginia for over 40 years in a home filled with the sounds of Doris' piano or Roger's construction of miniature ships. There were always family dogs or cats to help welcome their many friends and family.

Throughout her life, Doris loved and stayed active with her music. Affectionately known as "Diva Doris," she performed as lead soprano of the choir of the First Christian Church of Falls Church, were she was a founding member in 1952, and also many with other choirs, musical performance groups and community theatre.

Doris is preceded in death by her beloved Roger Smith (2016), her first husband Joe Crain (1995), and her son Joseph Hunter Crain (2016).  She is survived by her daughter, Lynne Crain Lanier (R.Josh) of Gainesville, VA, step-daughter Lori Smith of Cornwall, England, and daughter-in-law, Claire Crain of Palmyra, VA; grandchildren Heather Lanier Jacobs (Matt), Brooke Lanier Jones (Tim), Janice Henry, Billy Bostelman (Mara), Joshua Lanier (Sheila), Robert Lanier (Leah), Claire Brown (Howie), and Joseph Hunter Crain, Jr.; plus fifteen great-grandchildren.

Inurnment will be in Union Cemetery in Leesburg, Virginia.