Obituary: Phyllis Gay Smith

December 4, 1946 – November 26, 2023

Phyllis Gay Smith passed away in her Aspen home this November 26th after an all too brief battle with ALS – just eight days short of her 77th birthday. She is survived by her husband, Grafton; Peter, her son, his wife Amy and their two children, Anna and Evelynne; her daughter Christina and her husband, Graham; and Phyllis’s sister, Susan, and her two children, Brooks and Denise.

Phyllis was born in Southern California to Albert and Alice Gay Smith on December 4, 1946. She grew up at the beach, and often talked fondly about her Newport and Laguna Beach adventures and particularly her post high school days on Balboa Island.

In 1965, Phyllis moved to Aspen, where her first job was on Aspen Mountain slicing apples for Gretl’s (now Bonnie’s) famous strudel.

Phyllis went on to start one of the earliest day care centers in Aspen, once a week taking the kids out to Buttermilk for ski lessons. With the help of Art Pfister and Curt Chase, Phyllis then started Aspen’s first pre-school ski school, the Aspen Pre-school Hot Dog Clinic, operating out of the Buttermilk parking lot. In the early 80s, the Snowmass Resort Association invited her to start a similar program for them – and thus Snowmass Snowbunnies was born. Between the Hot Doggers and Snowbunnies, Phyllis and her staff introduced thousands of both local and vacationing children to skiing. In 1996, Snowbunnies was rolled into the Snowmass Ski Area’s program the Big Burn Bears.

Phyllis was always a creator and a doer. Her next venture after Snowbunnies was importing aspens, spruces and pines in refrigerated 18 wheelers. She had noticed that Aspen’s expanding real estate market was in need of trees for landscaping and found sources in Idaho and Montana. Many was the day when her back yard and driveway were covered in balled-in-burlap trees of all types and dimensions making her yard look like a portable forest.

From an early age, she loved animals and always had either a dog, or cat(s) or both. Phyllis was particularly fond of golden retrievers having had 5 over the years. When dogless, she would make it a point to volunteer to walk the Aspen Animal Shelter’s dogs.

Phyllis was generous with her time and was one of those Aspen locals who could be counted on to volunteer. Many a summer would find her working the Food and Wine, Theater Aspen, and/or the Jazz Aspen events. Like many other Aspenites, Sundays she could often be found sitting out on the grass at the Benedict Music Tent.

She loved adventure, which often found its expression in travel. She shared her husband’s passion for sailing, and spent many vacations cruising the BVI, Bahamas, West Indies, eastern Mediterranean, and Pacific North West. During these trips she became an avid scuba diver. Road trips were a staple of her summers, whether it was visiting family in California, Washington State, or Michigan, or attending the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta crewing for hot air balloonists. Somehow, she would find ways to insert herself and/or family into her husband, Grafton’s more interesting photographic assignments: Switzerland, Florida, Bahamas, BVI, Lake Powell, and most notably the 1988 Calgary Olympics.

In the past few years she took great pleasure visiting her friends in Puerto Rico. For her it was like going back to the beaches on which she had grown up.

It was Phyllis’s wish to be buried in the family plot at the Aspen Grove Cemetery next to her mother.

A memorial service will be held on March 16th at 11:30 am at Crossroads Church in Aspen, 726 W. Francis Street, followed by a Celebration of Life at 1:00 to 3:30 pm at the Elks Lodge 224. Please feel free to email Grafton with any questions or to RSVP at graftonm@aol.com.

In lieu of flowers please consider donating to The ALS Association Rocky Mountain Chapter 10855 Dover Street, suite 500, Westminster, Co. 80021 303-832-2322 or at alsaco.org