Gayle Cantwell Smith

Memorial services celebrating the life of Gayle Cantwell Smith, 92, of West Monroe, Louisiana, will be held at 10:00 A.M., Saturday, September 28, 2024, in the chapel of Mulhearn Funeral Home, West Monroe with Dr. Mark Fenn officiating.

Gayle Cantwell Smith was born on September 28, 1931, in Lake Providence, Louisiana to Walter and Edna Cantwell and she passed away on August 8, 2024, after a brief hospitalization.

She was the youngest of six daughters Norma Lee Cantwell, Myra Octavia Arledge, Nina Louise Prince, Agnes Claudell McVay and Alma Cantwell Kirksey. She graduated from Monticello High School and shortly after met and married Nolan Smith. They resided in Tallulah, Louisiana and later in West Monroe. Nolan and Gayle remained married sixty-five years until Nolan’s passing in 2017. Together they had four children, Suzanne Smith, Daniel Lynn Smith, Kenneth Emile Smith and John Cantwell Smith. Gayle was a dedicated wife, mother, homemaker and she was a sales leader for McRae’s Department Store in Vicksburg, Mississippi and in Monroe for over twenty years. She was a member of the First Baptist Church and prior to Nolan’s death she enjoyed participating in the choir. Gayle moved from West Monroe in October 2022 to a memory care facility in the beautiful hill country of Boerne, Texas. 

Those left to cherish her memory are her four children, Suzanne, Danny, Ken and his wife, Sue, and John; six grandchildren, Alan Cooper and his wife, Charlene, Ben Cooper, Shay Tran and her husband, Kevin, Alex Smith and his wife, Dena, Keelan Smith and his wife, Jessica, and Andrew Smith; eleven great grandchildren, Landry Cooper, Wyatt Cooper, Aiden Tran, Celes Tran, Jasper Tran, Triplets-Yuri, Bellamy, and Ciri Tran, Ezra Smith, Judah Smith, and Vera Smith; eight nieces, Judy Blair, Brenda Franz, Diane Diamond, Sandra Morris, Mickie Hughbanks, Vickie Cartlidge, Doris Ann Doucet and Jeffie Lee Lillard; and two nephews, Billy Floyd Kirksey, Jr. and David McVay. Gayle will be missed by her family as well as by her many friends in her memory care facility, where she loved to sing, paint, play bingo and balloon tennis.