Obituary
Mary Charles Smith

Mary Charles Smith (February 16 1978-December 23 2025)

Mary Charles Smith died on December 23, 2025 from acute complications of presumed cancer. She was 47.

A Raleigh, NC, native, Mary Charles cherished her childhood summers at Camp Seafarer. After graduating from Sanderson High School, she spent two fun-filled years at Louisburg College before earning degrees in Interior Design and Studio Art from Meredith College. Mary Charles spent many summers working for the City of Raleigh at Camp Durant and volunteered for the Special Olympics. Acting as the primary caregiver for her maternal grandmother, Edna Young Bailey, she learned skills that informed her ability to later manage the complex care of her mother’s and father’s medical challenges while simultaneously working to market and support her mother’s watercolor art business prior to her mother’s passing on December 24, 2024.

Mary Charles gave her mother, artist Beth Smith, credit for nurturing the color and design sense that were the foundation of her interior design business, May I Suggest… by MCS, and her private artist business, Charlesey Smith Fine Art. Mary Charles’ mixed media canvases were prominently featured in the Raleigh Parade of Homes, but her proudest local offering was in her own neighborhood. She organized “Art Around the Block,” an annual art walk that featured the talent of diverse Lakemont artists while increasing a sense of creative community in the neighborhood.

Mary Charles will be remembered for her generosity and candor, her fierce optimism, tremendous heart, and wicked humor. For Mary Charles, friend was a verb. She never showed up emptyhanded and never walked away from anyone in need. She remembered everything, delighted in connecting people, and had a story for any occasion. She was a loyal, loving, and active Democrat, a seeker of truth, and a person of faith. Mary Charles was devoted to a menagerie of animals, including her dogs Ida Claire and Laney, and the rabbits, deer, and chipmunks that visited her in her yard.

She was preceded in death by her mother Elizabeth “Beth” Bailey Smith; her grandparents, Edna Young Bailey and Thomas Edward Bailey, Martha Louise Davis Smith and Kline Wilson Smith; and uncle and aunt Charles Davis Smith and Florence Smith. Survivors include her father, Warren Ray Smith; uncle and aunt William Kline Smith and Edith Smith, and cousins Amy and Jeff; cousins Bryan and Courtney Smith and sons Nathan and Jacob; cousins Sharyn Smith Lynch and Larry Lynch and son Joey; close cousins Daniel “Wright” Young and his daughter Karen Cates, and a large extended family. Dear friend chaplain Carol Cato will be performing the ceremony.

As only children, Mary Charles and her mother Beth had the gift of turning friends into family, and a list of those dear ones who occupied important places in her heart would invariably be full of unintentional omissions. Mary Charles will be lovingly remembered by the aforementioned companion animals, many friends of all ages, artist colleagues, design collaborators, neighbors, bakers, farmers’ market vendors, former coworkers, and people who used to look a little lonely before she took them under her wing.

A graveside service will be held on Saturday, January 10, 2026, at 1 PM at Harris Chapel Baptist Church, 2960 Tarboro Rd, Youngsville, NC 27596. Following the service, the family will receive visitors from 3-5 PM at home.

In lieu of flowers, please contact ForMaryCharles@gmail.com to contribute toward a fund to defray immediate financial burdens.