Dr. Richard Smith dealt daily with patients who had stumbled into their own personal hell of addiction, but it never made him lose his zest for life’s riches.
He devoured books, taught himself languages, scheduled vacations around art exhibits, collected, collected and collected, and even — to one friend’s amazement — enjoyed the opera.
His friend and lawyer, C.B. Rogers, noted that Dr. Smith collected a diverse group of friends.
“He had an extraordinary life,” Mr. Rogers said. “He read widely, he listened widely and he observed widely. He reread more than I read.”
Dr. Smith earned his living treating patients with substance abuse problems at state clinics across Georgia, but his family and friends describe the lifelong bachelor’s breadth of interest as far surpassing medicine. “He was one of the smartest men I’ve ever met,” said Sallee Smith, his sister-in-law, a schoolteacher who lives in Floyd County. “I always refer to him as an Einstein. I guess he had a photographic memory because he would remember everything he read. He would study the dictionary as a boy and just loved it.
“But he would never let you know how much he knew. It was not like he was trying to show off his knowledge.”
Dr. Smith, however, didn’t come across as stuffy or a dull bookworm, said his longtime friend Wayne Smith, no relation. He noted that the good doctor — who was not a wealthy man — bought a thrift-store suit that had a stain on a trouser cuff.
Dr. Smith told a dry cleaner “ ‘to cut ’em off’ if the stain couldn’t be removed, meaning the cuffs. Instead he got back a suit with short pants.
“He was appalled, but then he thought what the heck, and he wore the thing and he was a sensation,” Mr. Smith said. “Only he had the savoir-faire to pull that off. He wore them with knee socks in the summer.”
Dr. Richard Laverne Smith, 68, died Aug. 1 of cancer and other medical problems. He was born in Toccoa on Nov. 10, 1940, to Cora and Vernon Smith. He was a honor student at Toccoa High School and an Eagle Scout.
He earned his undergraduate degree in pharmacy from the University of Georgia in 1962 and earned his medical degree from the university in 1966. He was a lieutenant in the Navy.
His friends say he was a pianist of “great accomplishment” who had been urged to pursue a musical career. Instead, his 40-year medical career focused on substance abuse, and in 1995, he was elected a fellow of the American Society of Addiction Medicine.
He was a lifelong dog lover, and at the time of his death, he had a 13-year-old dog, named Nelson, who was described as a Newfoundland mix and who shared a special bond with Dr. Smith.
They occupied a house in Midtown and — like the Labradors that had come before — Nelson could do little if anything wrong, Mrs. Smith said. “He treated that dog like a human, and that dog loved him dearly,” she said.
A neighbor adopted Nelson when Dr. Smith entered a hospice a few months ago, and the dog made various trips to Nurses Hospice of Atlanta to visit his dying buddy. The doctor made provisions in his will for a share of his modest estate to go to the neighbor to help care for the dog, Mrs. Smith said.
Dr. Smith was a pack rat, and his house was crammed with paintings, prints, antiques, books, lamps, pottery and sculptures, Mr. Smith said.
“He had that hoarding instinct,” Mr. Smith said. “We would go to Scott’s Antique Market and I would say, ‘Now where are you going to put that?’ And he would say, ‘That’s beyond the point.’ ”
Dr. Smith was cremated, and his family has not yet announced plans for a memorial service. His survivors include his father and two brothers, Larry Smith of Rome, Ga., and Robert Smith of Columbia, S.C.
In a few months, Wayne Smith said in accordance with Dr. Smith’s wishes, he will scatter his ashes in the harbors of his two favorite cities, New York and San Francisco.
“He wanted to be part of both oceans,” his friend said.
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