Kaye Hamblin

Barbara Kaye Smith Hamblin, 81, of Cape Girardeau died peacefully on Good Friday, April 10, 2020, in her home, surrounded by family.

Kaye was born Dec. 28, 1938, in Booneville, Mississippi, the first child of Ralph R. and Elsie Caveness Smith. She married Bobby Hamblin on June 10, 1960, at Candler's Chapel Baptist Church in Prentiss County, Mississippi.

Kaye graduated from Booneville High School and Delta State University. She earned a master's degree in elementary education at the University of Mississippi. She taught first grade in Baltimore County, Maryland, and Batesville, Mississippi, and was the director of Kinder Care Learning Center in Cape Girardeau. Known for her kind, gentle, compassionate spirit, Kaye touched and blessed the lives of countless individuals.

A longtime member of First Baptist Church in Cape Girardeau, she taught a children's Sunday school class and sang in the sanctuary choir for more than 50 years. One of the first women deacons ordained by the church, she served two terms as chairwoman of the deacon body. She also organized and led mothers' day out and after-school tutoring programs for the church.

Kaye's many interests included music, travel, history, reading, writing, gardening and bird-watching. She played the clarinet and the piano, and she taught both her children and both her grandchildren to play the piano. With her husband she traveled to 49 of the 50 states and 19 foreign countries, England being her favorite. She felt privileged to live in London on two separate occasions when Bobby taught in the Missouri London Program.

She and Bobby were awarded the Judith Ann Crow Residential Historic Rehabilitation Award by Old Town Cape, as well as an Excellence in Historic Preservation Award by the Southeast Missouri State University Sigma Pi Kappa chapter, for the restoration of the historic home at 313 Themis Street in Cape Girardeau. They successfully applied to have the home placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Kaye's book about the home and its first owner, Julia Russell Harris, "Finding Julia," was published by Southeast Missouri State University Press.

Kaye authored a popular children's story, "The Bird That Found a Home," for which she also drew the color illustrations. She and Bobby co-authored a biography of her father, "An Ordinary Man, An Extraordinary Life." She wrote for her grandchildren a memoir about growing up on a farm in Mississippi.

She was a member of the Nancy Hunter Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Survivors include her husband; brother, Ralph G. "Buddy" (Josie) Smith of Booneville; children, Laurie and Stephen, of Cape Girardeau; granddaughters, Kaleigh Hamblin (fiance Andrew Semaan) of Cape Girardeau and Abigail (Seth) Morrow of Fredericktown, Missouri; twin great-granddaughters, Annabelle Susan and Sarah Grace Morrow; and several nieces and nephews.

A private graveside service will be held in Fairmount Cemetery, with Ford and Sons Funeral Home in charge of arrangements and the Rev. Mike Shupert officiating. A public memorial service will be scheduled at a later date.

"Made like Him, like Him we rise, Alleluia! Ours the cross, the grave, the skies, Alleluia!"

In lieu of flowers, the family suggests memorial gifts be made to the Alzheimer's Association, 9370 Olive Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63132-3214; Southeast Hospice, 10 Doctors Park, Cape Girardeau, MO 63703, or Cape Girardeau First Baptist Church, 1289 Lexington Ave., Cape Girardeau, MO 63701.

Online condolences may be posted at www.fordandsonsfuneralhome.com.