Jenefer Smith

Photographer and Summit County chronicler Jenefer Ann Smith passed away Saturday evening, 11 March 2017, at her home in Hoytsville; she was sixty-three years old.

Born in Coalville to Weldon and Josephine (Gary) Smith, Jenefer graduated from North Summit High School in 1971.  Following her father’s death in 1978, Jenefer worked together with her mother to maintain the family’s mink ranch for another dozen years.  She is well-known in the community for her work retailing gemstones of the West, for her remarkable ability to cultivate all manner of plants, and for her deep caring for all manner of living creatures.

On August 22, 1994, Jenefer married her life’s companion Vernon Sanders, Jr. who faithfully supported her throughout their life together and through her final ordeal with cancer.

Proud of her Summit County heritage, Jenefer collaborated with the Summit County Historical Society to produce THEN AND NOW A Walking Tour of Coalville’s Historic Main Street,  and her photographs stand side-by-side with those of professionally educated, galleried photographers in the Society’s beautiful book Under One Sky.  A self-taught photographer, Jenefer’s extensive photographic collection resides on her website Earth and Heaven Photography.  She brought to her photography the same intensity that characterized her love for the earth, for her family, and for her home.

Jenefer was preceded in death by her parents and an infant brother.  She is survived by her husband, by her sisters Sydney Ann Smith-Kee (Gordon Kee) of Sherman Oaks, CA and Mary Denise Smith (Karl Hodges) of Salt Lake City, UT,  by her niece Elizabeth Jasmine Kee (Andrew George Lim) of Seattle, WA, and by step-children Yvette Young, Brook Lee, and Tyler Sanders.

In keeping with Jenefer’s wishes, there will be no public service.  Friends wishing to share thoughts about Jenefer or to extend condolences may do so through the Walker Mortuary website at www.walker-mortuary.com.  The family wishes to extend special thanks to the Applegate Hospice team and to Kathy Wilde for their help and support.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to Melanoma Research at the Huntsman Cancer Foundation.  To donate, please navigate to https://donate.huntsmancancer.org/give  and—in the drop-down labeled “choose where your donation will go”--select “Melanoma”;  then—in the drop-down labeled “dedicate my donation”—type Jenefer’s name in the box that says “in memory of,” and please fill in the acknowledgement information.