Jean Aikenhead Smith

1936 - 2025

Jean Aikenhead Smith

Lyme, NH - In her 88th year, Jean Aikenhead Smith carved beautiful turns down Worden's Schuss at the Skiway alongside her grandchildren, nurtured her gardens through a summer of drought, and took time to celebrate milestones, laughing with family and friends.

On November 11, 2025, early in her 89th year, she passed away peacefully at Stone House Farm in Lyme, the homestead she moved to with her husband, Mike, in 1965 and carefully stewarded ever since.

Jean was born in 1936 in Belmont, MA, to Priscilla Sage and John Dudley Aikenhead. She grew up in Belmont with her sister, Ellen, and spent many summers with her family on College Pond in Plymouth, MA. Jean attended Beaver Country Day School, graduated from Wheaton College, and then completed the Harvard-Radcliffe Program in Business Administration with a cohort of other inspired and inspiring women. There, she made lifelong friends who together shared life's ups and downs and stayed in close touch throughout seven decades.

In 1960, Jean married Stuart V. Smith (Mike) in Belmont, whom she met at a friend's wedding and wed after he pursued her on a long trip abroad. Following five years in New London, they bought a 1798 stone farmhouse in Lyme. At Stone House Farm, they raised their two daughters, cultivated an extensive trail system for horseback riding and X-C skiing, and lovingly cared for scores of animals during the next 60. These horses, dogs, cats, goats, and sheep played important roles in their lives and the life of the farm. A noted "chicken whisperer," Jean always had a healthy flock of "ladybirds," as she called them. After taking care of local summer camp horses at the farm over the winter, Jean converted her entire family into horseback riders, and horses became some of the farm's most prominent residents.

Jean's lifelong love of skiing brought her first to the White Mountains during high school, when her parents allowed her to drive up with friends and stay at the Tamarack Lodge near Cannon Mountain. Fortunately, Mike survived his first "ski lesson," which involved Jean bringing him to the top of Mount Sunapee and telling him to put his skis together and figure out how to get down. Through the years, their skiing adventures spanned the Rockies, Alps, Dolomites, and all over the Northeast. But when it came to putting a smile on her face, nothing was better than carving down her favorite runs at the Dartmouth Skiway, which she continued to do on her own through last winter, even as her peers aged out of the sport.

In addition to serving on numerous local boards and committees, in 1982, neighbors convinced Jean to run for Town Clerk in Lyme, a role she performed for the next 15 years, usually with her dog Tillie at her side. She took pleasure in knowing everyone in Lyme and working for many years with Patty Jenks, who would succeed her in the position and take care of the town for the next 27 years. In recognition of both Jean and her husband's commitment to Lyme, she and Mike were named Citizens of the Year in 2012.

Spring through fall, come rain or shine, Jean spent part of every day in her gardens, whether she was carefully attending to her perennials, cultivating the vegetables she nurtured from sprouts, or tending to her treasured asparagus patch. She gained great satisfaction from the hours she dedicated to working with the soil and her plants and possessed a depth of knowledge that left her family in awe.

Jean will be greatly missed by her husband, Mike, her daughters and their husbands Rebecca Lovejoy (Kevin Peterson) and Jennifer Schiffman (Mark), grandchildren Eva and Zane Schiffman, nieces and nephews Mary Priscilla Stevens (Erik Schneiderhan), Nathaniel Stevens (Charley Anderson), and Tyler Stevens (Molly Aronson) and great nieces and nephews Sage, Abby, Sam Hale, and Coco. She was predeceased by her sister, Ellen Stevens, and Ellen's husband, Sam.

Per Jean's request, there will be no service, and in lieu of flowers, donations in Jean's memory can be made to Planned Parenthood of New England or the Pearl Dimick Fund c/o The Lyme Foundation.