Frances Lucille Cameron

Frances Lucille Smith Cameron, 96 years of age, passed away gently in her sleep as she ascended into the Celestial Kingdom on Monday, December 29, 2025, in Conyers, Georgia.

Born on Tuesday, February 26, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia, Frances was the cherished daughter of the late David Olin and Hattie Mae Duke Smith, and the first-born of their five children. Frances, popularly known as Fran to most of her multitudinous friends, was reared lovingly by her wonderful parents in Conyers. After graduation from Conyers High School in 1946, she enrolled at Greenleaf Business College in Atlanta, where she acquired top-level secretarial skills, including the ability to accurately type faster than many people can think while also learning and then thoroughly mastering what has become the almost-lost art of shorthand. Throughout her life, she happily jotted down copious personal notes to herself that she scattered around her house that were indited in esoteric shorthand-coded characters only she could read. If asked by a befuddled reader for a decryption, she would provide an interpretation.

Frances married the late Coleman Ray Cameron, a U.S. Navy World War II veteran originally from LaGrange, Georgia, on Saturday, June 3, 1950, at Peachtree Christian Church in Atlanta. Their loved-filled and faithful marriage spanned longer than six decades, culminating with the passing into Heaven on April 4, 2014, of her beloved husband, whom she called Ray.

A former chairwoman of the Rockdale Republican Party, Frances engaged herself in a plethora of disparate activities and hobbies. She captained political campaigns, and her candidates won. She was a poll worker and supervisor overseeing compliance with election regulations at various polling sites. She was an avid reader of books, magazines, and newspapers. During her later years, she developed an affinity for perusing obituaries. Her perusals were not done morbidly; they were done joyously because she found many obits to be warmly informative and sometimes humorous. She often spent hours per day working blissfully in her various gardens. Perpetually convivial, courteous, and kind to animals, Frances was widely known as "Friendly Fran" and "Fran Free Spirit."

While living in Greenville, South Carolina in the mid-60's, Frances worked as a secretary at Dillard Paper Company where she met a feisty-but-kind coworker, Beth Rice. Beth and her kindhearted husband, Mike Rice, became Frances' loyal, lifelong friends. In the summer of 1968, occasioned by Ray's job transfer, Frances and Ray moved from Greenville downstate to the Carolina Lowcountry, residing in Hanahan, located just outside of Charleston. The Rice's, fortuitously, had recently relocated to Charleston themselves. Frances quickly found work as a secretary at the Medical University of South Carolina in downtown Charleston. She was eventually promoted to office manager of the entire pathology laboratory department. One day in the late 70's, an MUSC physician averred, 'That office would shut down without Fran.' Within her decades-long career at MUSC, Frances hired a warmhearted young lady, Karen Baccei, who became a lifetime friend. Frances also coordinated the daily goings on of highly erudite MUSC professionals with regal credentials, including titles whose signage inscriptions carried impressive abbreviations that adorned their office doors, such as that of her much-admired boss: Samuel Spicer, Ph.D. Surrounded by such proclamations of educational excellence, Frances assertively chose to have her office doorplate festooned with her own majestic titular lettering: Fran Cameron, W.W. She informed curious inquisitors that her cryptic designation translated into either Fran Cameron, Working Woman or Fran Cameron, White Woman.

During her retirement years in Conyers, Frances joined the Red Hat Society, whose red-and-purple-clad camaraderie she immensely enjoyed.

Frances is survived by her eternally grateful son, whom she affectionately called "my little boy" well into his adulthood, Michael Patrick Cameron and her reciprocally loved daughter-in-law (Mike's wife), Alison Claire Vickery-Cameron, both of Conyers; her two loving and deeply devoted sisters, whom Frances loved with her whole heart, Ann Smith MacCarthy of Conyers and Kathyrn Smith West of McDonough; her nieces, Cheryl Smith of Covington, Pamela Waggoner of Loganville, Vicki (Jeff) Kuhn of Milner, Terri (Richie) Hiott of McDonough, Angela (Ron) King of Locust Grove, and Lita (David) Parks, of Conyers; her nephews, Mark (Kerri) Smith of Eatonton, Scott (Janelle) Smith of Conyers, David (Karyn) Norton of Dacula, Jack Norton of Cartersville, Loren Smith of Conyers, and Lance Smith of Conyers; and her cousins, Earline Harbin of Fairburn and Ray (Becky) Smith of Buckhead.

Frances was predeceased by Ray Cameron, her husband and the love of her life; her parents, David Olin and Hattie Mae Smith; her dearly loved and always missed brother and sister, William Charles Smith and Marian Smith Norton, respectively; her sisters-in-law, Annie Cameron and Mae Cameron, who also served as two of Frances' forever-friends and were with her when she birthed her only child, Mike, in the wee hours of March 4, 1952.

While living at Heritage Home Care in Conyers, Frances received medication, bathing, nutritious meals, a clean and temperature-comfortable private room, a huge TV mounted on the wall, and was treated with compassion for 18 months by cheerful owner Sylvie Sanful and her staff.

Frances requested that the following quote from Hunter S. Thompson grace her obituary:

"Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, 'Wow! What a ride!'"

A memorial service honoring Frances' angelic life will be held Sunday, January 11, 2026, at 3 p.m. in Conyers Presbyterian Church, 911 North Main Street NW, Conyers, GA 30012.