Daughter of Virgil Lester "Byrd" Williams and Anne Hicks Williams. Her father worked as a manager in a furniture factory and her mother worked as a bank teller. She grew up in a small house that her father, grandfather and uncle built during WWII. She attended and graduated from West End High School in 1959. She was named Miss Senior and Homecoming Queen of of West End H.S. in 1959. She won first place as Miss Robbins and was named Miss Moore County. She advanced to win first runner-up in the Miss North Carolina pageant and was one of two contestants sent to represent the state of North Carolina in the Miss America pageant. She was awarded a scholarship to attend college. She initially planned to attend East Carolina State University to pursue a degree in education to become a teacher. However, her father encouraged her to consider becoming a nurse instead. She graduated from High Point School of Nursing in 1963. She accepted nursing assignments in Baltimore and Washington, DC.

While on a nursing assignment in the ER at a hospital in Winston-Salem, she met a young surgeon named Joel Perry Smith, Jr. They were married in 1965 in Pinehurst, NC and moved to Tampa, FL where Dr. Smith became the Chief of the Department of Otolaryngology at the U.S. Strategic Air Command, MacDill AFB. In 1967, they moved to Atlanta and joined Joel's father (also a surgeon) to develop their private medical/surgical practice. She assisted by helping to manage the practice, overseeing the office, supporting the nursing needs and the bookkeeping responsibilities. They worked with others to help found a new physician-owned hospital named Doctors Memorial Hospital, later becoming part of Emory University Midtown. They were members of The Church of the Apostles for over 30 years. She was preceded in death by her parents; and husband, Joel. Surviving are her children, Joel Smith, III (Shae), Preston Smith (Liz), Elizabeth Carroll (Kells) and her thirteen grandchildren, Joel IV, Tali, Hunter, Preston, Jr., Christi, Jordan, Marshall, Abigail, Lydia, Brayden, Carson, David and Grace.