Clarinda Corbin Smith; Church Administrator

Clarinda Corbin Smith, who was active in church administration and ministry, died Friday at her home in Ventura. She was 104.

She was born Dec. 14, 1896, in El Paso and was the youngest of five children.

Her father, an ordained minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church South, was instrumental in administering the denomination’s work throughout Mexico.

She graduated from El Paso High School in 1913 and received a bachelor’s degree from Occidental College in Los Angeles.

After college, she and her sister Mary became directors of the Christian Social Service Center in El Paso.

Several years later she enrolled in a graduate program at UC Berkeley where she completed her master’s thesis.

In 1924, she married J. Hunter Smith, a pastor of the Methodist Episcopal Church North, and raised two children. The couple moved to Ventura in 1941.

She assisted her husband in his ministry as a teaching and administration leader. The couple retired in 1949.

After the death of her husband in 1974, she began helping her son, who is pastor of Trinity Community Church in Ventura. With her sister Mary’s help, she taught a Sunday school class and cooked evening meals, on Tuesdays for children and Wednesdays for adults, until she was 99.

She was preceded in death by her husband and her sister Mary, who died in February at age 106.

She is survived by her daughter, June Macadam, of Newport Beach and her son, the Rev. Markle Corbin Smith, of Ventura; five grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.

Visitation will be from 5 to 8 p.m. Thursday at the Charles Carroll Funeral Home in Ventura.

Funeral services are scheduled for 1 p.m. April 14 at Trinity Community Church in Ventura. Burial will be the following week.

Arrangements are under the direction of the Charles Carroll Funeral Home in Ventura.

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Ventura County obituaries are compiled by Linda Herron. They are published free of charge as a public service to readers, based on information provided by mortuaries.