Clarence L. “Roy” Smith
The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution announces with great sorrow the death of former employee Clarence L. “Roy” Smith on January 9, 2025, with his family by his side. He was 87.
Born in Brockton, MA, and raised in West Bridgewater, MA, Roy was the son of Isabel (Pike) Smith and Clarence Smith.
Roy graduated from Bristol County Vocational High School and shortly after enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard. He served as a seaman aboard the USCGC Castle Rock monitoring weather stations and carrying out search and rescue in the North and South Atlantic. After Hospital Corps school, he served with the First District Medical Officer in Boston; the USCGC Icebreaker Eastwind, participating in Operation Deepfreeze ’60-’61 in the Antarctic and President Eisenhower’s “People to People Campaign” resulting in that ship’s around-the-world cruise. Discharged as a Petty Officer, 2nd Class, his last duty station was the U.S. Public Health Service Outpatient Clinic in Portland, ME.
After discharge from the Coast Guard, Roy began working at the Boston Children’s Hospital as a technician in the surgical research laboratory. He was part of a medical team working on the development and testing of various types of artificial heart prototypes. He later became operator of the CHMC hyperbaric facility, the first of its kind in New England, in which pediatric cardiovascular surgery and treatment of specific newborn heart/lung defects were carried out.
In 1967, he began his career at WHOI as a research assistant in what was then the MC&G Department. In 1973, he was promoted to Senior Research Assistant. In 1979, Roy transferred from the MC&G Department to Department Executive Assistant of G&G. In 1993, he was reclassified as Department Administrator. He retired in 1997.
After his career at WHOI, Roy worked as general manager of McLane Research Laboratories in Falmouth, manufacturers of oceanographic instrumentation, for five years. He retired from that position in 2002.
After retirement, Roy was an active volunteer with the Falmouth Service Center and as a Hospice Volunteer and advocate. He enjoyed researching and writing family history, wood carving, several years of travel, and life at their retirement home at Southport in Mashpee.
He is survived by his wife of 56 years, Cynthia Reynolds Smith; son Jason C. Smith and wife Cynthia of Mashpee; son Aaron J. Smith of Mashpee; granddaughters Laura J. Edmunds and her husband Jonathan of Georgia; Olivia J. Grochmal, and her husband Ryan of South Carolina; great grandchildren: Emerson and Meredith Grochmal, Hadley, and Julian Edmunds; nephew Jeffrey K. Bagley and wife Laurice; and grand-nieces Margaret and Molly Bagley of Connecticut.
A funeral service will be held on Friday, January 17, 2025, at 11 a.m. at John Wesley United Methodist Church, 270 Gifford St, Falmouth, MA 02540. Burial will be private.
In lieu of flowers, donations in Roy’s name may be made to the Falmouth Service Center, 611 Gifford Street, Falmouth, MA, 02540.
Information for this obituary is from the Chapman Funeral Home website