Joel Harold Smith, 92, Harrisonville, MO, passed away peacefully in his sleep on Friday, June 10, 2016, surrounded by family, at the Kansas City Hospice House. Memorial services will be held at 11:00 a.m. Thursday, June 16, 2016 at the First Baptist Church in Harrisonville with full military honors. Friends may call from 6:00-8:00 p.m. Wednesday, June 15, at the church. Private inurnment will be in Orient Cemetery. Memorial contributions may be made to the Harrisonville First Baptist Church, 504 West Wall Street, Harrisonville, MO 64701.

Harold was born June 5, 1924 at El Dorado Springs, MO. He was the firstborn son of George Joel and Myrtle Jackson Smith. He started school in Belton, Missouri where his father was the Superintendent of Schools. Harold's parents wrote an autobiography in their retirement about their lives. They selected a quote to accompany the chapter that described each of their individual children. Harold's chapter began with a quote by Thomas Edison, "Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits," which proved to be an apt description of Harold from the earliest age. Industrious and ambitious, Harold owned the KC Post Paper Route for several years as a youngster. He also swept floors at the A. C. Mercantile Co. every morning before school.

The family moved to Harrisonville in 1936; his father studied law and became a probate and magistrate judge. Harold and his brother Lawrence worked together mowing lawns, raising chickens and calves, and throwing the Kansas City Post route. Harold became president of his class. He completed high school by mid-term of his senior year and enrolled at the University of Iowa at Iowa City for the last semester of the year in 1942. By spring of 1943 Harold applied and was accepted to the V-12 Navy College Training Program designed to supplement the force of commissioned officers in the U.S. Navy. He studied one year in the Tuck School of Business Administration at Dartmouth in Hanover, New Hampshire, and then completed one semester at Harvard University in Boston, MA. He received his commission as Ensign in 1944 the day prior to his birthday, becoming the youngest commissioned officer in the U.S. Navy at that time. He served as an officer in Norfolk and Newport, Virginia loading out ships, and then served in Guam where he supervised the building of a large supply base with 600 SeaBee builders under his command. He achieved the rank of Lieutenant JG during his term of service in the U.S. Navy. Harold completed his B.S. in Business Administration from the University of Iowa in 1949 and married his soul mate, the love of his life, Mildred May Hayes on August 28, 1949. They have two children, Laurence Dean Smith and Dorothy June Smith.

Partners in love and life for over 67 years, Mildred and Harold lead a life of shared vision, adventures and enterprise. Working side by side, they owned and operated a Western Auto Store in Laredo, Texas from 1949-1955. Returning to Harrisonville, together they built the home of their dreams where they raised their family and welcomed their friends. Harold took special pleasure in planting flowering trees, a pecan grove, cherry trees, and a magnificent blue spruce that he brought as a seedling from Canada. Harold enjoyed fishing, hunting, watching football and playing golf for recreation. Harold and Mildred owned and operated the International Harvester business in Harrisonville from 1955-1959. Through his relationships with friends and family in the farming community of Cass County, Harold recognized an opportunity to enter the real estate business, becoming a broker in 1959. Harold loved helping people and his passion was helping people find homes. He opened the family real estate company, J. Harold Smith Realty and began buying and selling farms and developing small acreage. In 1964 he started a building company and over his career built over 400 homes in Cass County.

In 1975 Harold's son Laurence joined the real estate business and Harold focused on building homes. The entire family worked together in the real estate business over the next 40 years enjoying the many relationships they built with contractors, fellow business leaders, and families in the Cass County area.

Throughout these years, Harold and Mildred were passionate about their work and their recreation, traveling to over 87 countries, fishing every year for salmon in British Columbia, and golfing in favorite locations as diverse as their home club at Twin Pines Country Club in Harrisonville to St. Andrews in Scotland. They were especially honored to be a part of the first group of American visitors escorted through mainland China in 1979 as "People to People International Ambassadors" when the United States and the People's Republic of China announced a mutual establishment of diplomatic relations. They traveled to China again years later. They considered the trip to China in 1979 to be the most remarkable of their shared travels. Another proud moment was participating in the WWII Veteran's Honor Flight to Washington DC in March of 2015.

Energetic, resourceful and enjoying their business and work, Harold and Mildred worked together in their business in Harrisonville until 2005. They bought a home in Florida. Retiring to The Villages, Florida, they made many friends there, playing golf with their friends at least five or six times a week until spring of 2015 when Harold first began to have some health challenges at age 90.

Throughout his life, Harold loved his hometown and was a humble and loyal community member. His involvements in the Harrisonville community include the following: Harold served as member of the Harrisonville Area Chamber of Commerce and the Kiwanis for over 40 years and was a member of the American Legion. At the time of his death he was the oldest living member and a deacon of the First Baptist Church of Harrisonville. He was one of the first members of the Harrisonville Park Board. He was honored to serve as a Member of the Board of Directors at the Commerce Bank in Harrisonville for over 40 years.

Harold sought ways to give back to the community he loved. Over the course of his life, he received several recognitions for community service which included: Honored for Service on the Twin Pines Country Club Board of Directors, 1993; recognized as "Conservationist of the Year Award" from the Cass County Soil and Water Conservation District in 1994; received the Cass County Development Award from the Central Bank of Kansas City in 2003; received the "Conservation Landowner of the Year Award" from Quail Unlimited in 2010 for his commitment to re-establishing quail habitat around his Cass County farms.

Envisioning the benefits to Harrisonville of an improved local airport, in 1982 Harold and Mildred gave a gift of 104 acres of land on the east side of 71 Highway to the City of Harrisonville under the condition that it be used for an airport. Through a matching federal grant, the airport was built and named for Harold's younger brother, Lawrence J. Smith who died in 1948 at age 22 in the crash of a Naval aircraft training mission near Olathe. Harold and Mildred were quietly and humbly pleased to make this gift to improve their hometown and honor his brother.

Harold will always be remembered for his generous life, his great business acumen, the art of storytelling and his talent for making friends. He is survived by his wife Mildred of the home; his children Laurence Smith and wife Renee of Harrisonville, his daughter Dorothy Smith of Olathe; granddaughters Lauren Pedersen (Matt) Ankeny, IA; Lesley Nasalroad (Mike), Olathe, KS; Charlotte Matthews (Patrick), Olathe, KS; great-grandchildren, Jack and Marcus Pedersen, Delaney Nasalroad, and Evie Matthews; and his sisters Mary Ann Theiss (Floyd), Greenwood, MO; Nancy Childress, Wilmette, IL; many nieces and nephews, and friends. He was preceded in death by his parents, one brother Lawrence, his brother-in-law Dudley Childress, his sister-in-law Betty Phillips, his son-in-law William James and his granddaughter Allison W. Smith.

This spring and summer, family and friends have observed a pair of quail that have returned to nest on the farm where Harold planted quail habitat north of Harrisonville in 2010. If Harold's children and grandchildren were to choose a quote to describe him and the legacy he leaves, as his mother did so many years ago, it would be: "If you can dream it, you can do it!" Walt Disney