Kathleen Victoria Piro Smith, known to her friends as "Kay," and to her grandkids as "Great," passed away May 20, 2020, at the family home in the Brophy District of Yuba County. She was 92.

A native of the Pacific Northwest, Kay was a sharp business woman who owned a variety store near the Canadian border as a teen-ager, and managed the Value Village Thrift Store in Yuba City and Linda for 35 years. She was among a generation of special parents who envisioned, funded, and developed the first educational, athletic, industrial, and care relief programs for the developmentally disabled in Yuba and Sutter counties.

Kay donated many of her paychecks back to the Yuba-Sutter Association for Retarded Citizens, which owned the thrift store that funded the first activity centers, sheltered workshops, respite care programs, a bowling league, and Special Olympics. Her daughter, Kathy Smith, at age 70 is the oldest and longest tenured participant in the Yuba-Sutter Special Olympics.

Kay was born in Snohomish, Washington, on June 26, 1927, to Albert Piro and Muriel Stewart Piro. The family later relocated to Sumas, Washington, on the Canadian border, where as a teen-ager she opened a variety store in conjunction with her father's pharmacy, and sold sodas, floats, and milk shakes, as well as taking orders for Western Union and flowers.

At the conclusion of World War II, while visiting his sister in Sumas after being discharged on the West Coast, a young Army veteran ordered flowers for his mother, half a country away in Missouri. Kay told her children the soldier never paid for the flowers, but she did not hold that against her future husband. Charles E. "Charlie" Smith and Kay Piro were married in Bellingham, Washington on April 2, 1948.

In 1956, after several years of farming in Whatcom County, Washington, Charlie accepted a job as a civil engineer with the California Division of Highways and moved the family to Marysville, California. In their first years here, they hosted square dance parties with several of the Linda firemen and their spouses, removing the couch from the living room to the front yard on Sunshine Avenue so they could Do-si-do on the hardwood floor.

In 1963, they built a home on three acres with walnut and prune trees on Hammonton Road, two miles from the Beale Air Force Base flight line. There they raised their family with the experience of farming. Until she began managing the thrift store, Kay ran a child daycare program that drew children from the surrounding area to the property over the course of several years.

On May 15, 2020, after 10 weeks in hospital and unable to receive family visitors due to COVID-19, Kay came home to hospice care lovingly administered by her youngest daughter, Rebecca Zaniroli, her son-in-law, David, and her granddaughter, Jessica.

In addition to her parents, Kay is preceded in death by her husband, Charlie (1989); a daughter, Sandra Jean Smith Tardy (2000); and brothers, Albert Piro (1924), who died as an infant; and James Piro (1993).

She is survived by two daughters, Kathy Smith and Rebecca Zaniroli (husband David Zaniroli) both of Marysville; a son, Chuck Smith (wife Linda Marchelletta Plummer) of Marysville; grandchildren, Heidi Smith Long, Jessica Zaniroli, Kristian Zaniroli, Shaine Plummer, and Dahni Shaw; and great-grandchildren, Claudia, Liam, Gavin, Mia, Shaylee, Kloe, Asher, Kolby, Milo, and Jaxson.

Kay was a grateful and caring individual. She and her husband were involved in school and youth activities, always taking leadership roles in the all-volunteer efforts to provide opportunities and activities for children. She served as Treasurer of the Olivehurst-Linda Little League, as President of Innerwheel for South Yuba Rotary in the 1970s, as a youth mentor for the program begun by South Yuba Rotary that became the regional Rotary Youth Leadership Academy (RYLA), and on the Board of Directors of United Way.

She taught her children to bake and type and balance a check book, and to not judge others. As the parent of a developmentally disabled child and a second child who developed type-1 diabetes as a juvenile, she was acutely aware of the needs of families without the resources to provide sufficient care, school, and work opportunities for sick or disabled children.

Value Village opened in 1972, in Yuba City, moved to the corner of Lindhurst and Hammonton roads in Linda shortly thereafter, and operated until 2008. The store employed several developmentally disabled individuals. Kay was co-manager for several years with Norma Montna, who, along with her husband, Larry, later opened Butchie's Pool. She was assisted in the store's management by Bette Johnson, one of her first new friends when she moved to California. When the store closed and the Yuba-Sutter Association of Retarded Citizens sold the property, the proceeds were donated to Butchie's Pool.

Her family is grateful for the care she received by the staffs at Adventist Health and Rideout and Yuba City Post Acute Care, and for the guidance of Sutter Health Home Hospice.

Private burial arrangements were made at Sierra View Memorial Park through Lipp and Sullivan Funeral Home in Marysville. The family will plan a celebration of Kay's life when it is safer to congregate.

In lieu of flowers, the family strongly encourages you to be nice to your parents if you still have them, and consider a donation to Yuba-Sutter Special Olympics via mail at 1171 Phillips Road, Yuba City, CA, 95991.
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