Ingeburg Smith, 88, German Immigrant After WWII

Ingeburg Lieselotte Smith, age 88,  passed away Nov. 14 from complications due to cancer.

As a young girl in Germany, Inge watched the Hindenberg fly overhead. As WWII approached, she and her mother helped to feed a Jewish neighbor even though it would have been hard for them if they were caught. She was in the first group of women to join the German Navy where she did clerical work and spotted planes. She lost her fiancé Walter Antl after he disappeared on a U-Boat mission. She survived a bombed building, escaped from East Germany and cut the hair of occupying Russian soldiers. 

After the war she met her husband, Charles Smith, and moved to Charleston, West Virginia, where she raised two children and lived there for 20 years. In 1972 the family moved to Atlanta where she made a happy home for herself and many stray cats and dogs who were lucky enough to cross her path. Inge was a cheerful person who never met a stranger and always looked to the positive side of life.

She is preceded in death by her parents Karl Scholz and Martha Lauterbach, her husband Charles Smith and brother Gerhard Zimmer. Surviving are brothers Ludwig Enga, Karlheinz Scholz, Horst Scholz, and  sister Dorothea Vogel all of Germany and children William Smith of Atlanta and Melinda Embry of Lilburn. No viewing or services are planned. 

In lieu of flowers please donate to the humane society. Condolences may be viewed or sent to www.wagesfuneralhome.com. Tom M. Wages Funeral Service, LLC, “A Family Company” Snellville Chapel 770-979-3200, has been entrusted with the funeral arrangements.

-Courtesy of Tom M. Wages Funeral Service