Peachtree – A stretch of highway where she once ran a general and feed store is being dedicated in honor of the late Marcella Hampton Smith, a farmer, businesswoman and longtime educator in Cherokee County who overcame polio to lead a full, inspiring life.
The dedicated section of U.S. 64 East Alternate is between Fall Branch Road and N.C. 141 in Peachtree. Signs were unveiled at a ceremony at McGuire’s Millrace Farm, across Hendrix Road from where Smith’s farm is located.
Smith was born on June 20, 1916 and died on Feb. 18, 2007. She contracted polio in 1919, when she was just 4 years old. Polio is a virus that can lead to paralysis and was one of the most feared childhood diseases until a vaccine was developed in the 1950s.
Smith was undeterred by her affliction. According to her nominating application, she taught others that “you can do anything with strength, will, perseverance and a positive attitude.”
She was a church elder, Sunday school teacher, church women’s and Eastern Star officer, and a “beloved teacher in the Cherokee County Schools, well known for her firm but fair discipline and inspiring her students to become local, state and national leaders in varied disciplines.”
Smith was even named state Educator of the Year at one point in her career. She and her husband started farming a 230-plus acre spread in the Peachtree community in 1942.
Under her leadership, the farm received local and regional awards for its protection of soil, water and natural resources. Smithmont farm still operates.
Road naming class
The process to have a stretch of road dedicated to an individual can be lengthy. Smith’s nomination was presented in early 2023 and was followed by three letters of recommendation, a character certification, a resolution by the local board of commissioners and culminating in deliberation by the N.C. Department of Transportation’s Road/Bridge/Ferry Naming Committee, which met Oct. 4 to decide on Smith’s and other nominations.
Smith is a member of a road-naming class that included nominations for U.S. Rep. David Price (the interchange of Interstate 40 and U.S. 15-501 in Durham County); NBA All-Star Steph Curry (a section of Interstate 77 in Mecklenburg County); Watauga County sheriff’s Sgt. Christopher Ward, who was killed in the line of duty along with fellow Deputy Logan Fox during a welfare check in 2021 (a U.S. 321 bridge over the Watauga River in Watauga County); and Jason Hensley, a Burke County volunteer firefighter who died in the line of duty in 2017 (a Drexel Road bridge that crosses I-40 in Burke County).
Audrey Smith Ware of White Plains, Ga., approached the Cherokee County Board of Commissioners in 2023 requesting the board adopt a resolution honoring her late mother and to support the family’s request to the DOT to name the segment of highway in honor of her mother.
“The honorary designation of this segment of Old U.S. 64 will be a wonderful remembrance for those in the community as well as those traveling that section,” Ware wrote about Smith. “Whether it be those that were impacted by her life or a remembrance of those whose life, decisions or future were impacted by my mother actions and the life she lived.”
Ware and her family agreed to pay the $2,000 administrative fee, which includes manufacturing and installing the highway signs.
Smith’s legacy
Smith was a longtime educator in Cherokee County Schools. The Cherokee County Retired School Personnel group, then chaired by former schools superintendent Jeana Conley, expressed its full support for the dedication.
“Her original story is filled with a captivating history,” Conley wrote. “Although diagnosed with polio at age 4, she was undeterred, teaching others you can do anything with strength, will, perseverances and, most of all, a strong, deeply rooted faith.
“While many today would call her disabled, she was high school valedictorian, played basketball at Murphy High as well as Western Carolina (University), drove tractors, pursued her education, and became a community, regional and state leader, as well as raising four children.”
She began her teaching career at age 19 at Bates Creek School in the early 1930s. She later taught in Martins Creek, Marble and Peachtree Elementary schools.
She earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Western Carolina; ran Smithmont Farm, a dairy and cattle farm that her family still owns; and operated a feed and general store off U.S. 64 near present-day Erlanger Western Carolina Hospital.
Letters of support were also submitted by the Cherokee County Soil & Water Conservation District and Chapter 10 of the Order of the Eastern Star.