Betty Jean Smith Obituary - Visitation & Funeral Information

Grave side memorial services for BETTY JEAN SMITH, 92, will be held at 10am Saturday, September 12, 2020 at the Valley View Cemetery in Torrington, Wyoming with Pastor Rick Carroll officiating. Betty died September 6, 2020 at Community Hospital and cremation has taken place. In lieu of flowers memorial to the donor’s choice would be appreciated. Arrangements are by the Colyer Funeral Home and condolences may be sent to www.colyerfuneralhome.com. Betty was born February 6, 1928 in Denver, Colorado the daughter of Lloyd and Jenny (Mathews) Lyman. Her mother died when she was ten and her father remarried to Pearl Harms. She grew up in the Bayard Nebraska area and graduated Bayard High School in 1946. She then attended and graduated from West Nebraska Methodist Hospital in Scottsbluff, Nebraska as a Registered Nurse in 1949. Betty married Kayo Smith on August 27, 1950 in Bayard. She worked as a nurse in Omaha, Nebraska while Kayo attended medical school. After his graduation in 1954 they moved to Oakland, California for his residency and then to Lahaina, Hawaii for six months before returning to Bayard and then to Torrington, Wyoming in 1957 where her husband joined the Torrington Medical Group as a General Practitioner, M.D. Betty worked in many places over the years including the US Bureau of Indian Affairs in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, the Visiting Nurses Association in Omaha, Nebraska, the University of Nebraska Medical School in the OB ward in Omaha, Merritt Hospital in Oakland, and the Lahaina Hospital in Hawaii. Betty was Kayo’s "right hand man" in life, in his career and in ranching as they raised Charolais cattle in Fort Laramie, Wyoming. Betty enjoyed knitting, crewel work, reading, Western history, antiquing, refinishing antiques, and making chokecherry wine and jelly. Her love of the outdoors included backpacking, fishing, hunting, camping, watching the University of Nebraska and Wyoming football, was a basketball fan and enjoyed catching sporting events on the radio. She was affiliated with P.E.O. where she was a fifty-three year member of Chapter AK, the Republican party where she was a twenty year precinct committee woman, the American Legion Auxiliary, the United Methodist Church Women’s Circle, and supported her kids activities as a Cub Scout leader, Boy Scouts, Campfire Girls, Job’s Daughters, 4-H and high school sporting events. Betty is survived by a daughter Joanne (Richard) Lora Zimmerman of Chandler, Arizona; a son Todd Kayo Smith of Fort Laramie, Wyoming; a daughter-in-law Dr. Marion Smith of Torrington; five grandchildren; and three great grandchildren. She was preceded in death by her parents; her husband Kayo; a son Steven Norris Smith; a grandson Scott Adams Zimmerman; a sister Joanne Jeanette Lyman; a brother Richard LeRoy Lyman; two step-brothers Richard Harms and Robert Harms; and her step-mother

Betty Jean Smith

February 6, 1928 - September 6, 2020