Elizabeth Pate (Smith) Carlson

Elizabeth Pate (Smith) Carlson, a resident of Somerford House in Hagerstown, Maryland, died Thursday, Jan. 15, 2015, at Meritus Medical Center. She was 88.

Born March 3, 1926, in Montezuma, Georgia, she was the daughter of the late William Head and Elizabeth Rebecca (Bessie) Mitchell Pate.

She graduated from Valdosta State College in Georgia with a degree in biology and earned a Master

of Technology from Alabama Medical College in 1948.

She married the late William Eric Smith in 1948, and they moved to Washington, D.C., where she worked as a medical technologist before her children were born.

She and her husband were charter members of Concord-St. Andrew’s United Methodist Church in Bethesda, Maryland.

In 1984, she earned a Master of Divinity from Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, and moved to West Virginia after accepting a two-point charge at Gerrardstown and Ganotown United Methodist churches. She later was pastor of New Street United Methodist Church, in Shepherdstown, before retiring from the ministry in 1996.

Her husband died in 1993; they were married 45 years.

She moved to Quincy Village, Pennsylvania, after retiring, and in 2006 she married Vernon Pate Carlson. He died in 2008.

She was a life-long artist who taught watercolor and collage and exhibited in three states. She was a member of Unitarian Universalist Church of Hagerstown.

Survivors include her children, Eric Alan Smith (Lisa), of Culpepper, Virginia, Lisa Smith (Shannon), of Columbus, Ohio, Melanie Dzwonchyk (Wayne), of Laurel, Maryland and Camille Smith (Robin), of Waynesboro, Pennsylvania; stepdaughter, Pamela Wilson (David), of Selbyville, Delaware; grandchildren Courtney (Mark), Jessica, Jamie, Chris, Ashleigh, David (Meaghan), Rachel, Alex, Andrew, Mary and Sam; and great-grandchildren, Sydney, Charlotte, Brooklynn, Laylah, Camron, Grace and Carter.

A memorial service will be held 11 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 31, at Montessori Academy of Chambersburg,

Pennsylvania, 875 Ragged Edge Road. Interment will be at Arlington National Cemetery at a later date.

Memorial contributions may be made to the building fund at Unitarian Universalist Church of Hagerstown, 13245 Cearfoss Pike, Hagerstown, MD 21740.