Lasting Memories

Clare Frischmuth Smith
Sept. 28, 1944-May 17, 2026
Palo Alto, California

The only child of Avis (Besk) and Leland Dewitz, Clare grew up in Wisner, Nebraska, a town of just 1,200 people. As a Girl Scout, she earned the Curved Bar Award (now known as the Gold Award). After graduating from high school, she attended the University of Nebraska, majoring in Business Education and joining the Alpha Omicron Pi sorority. In her senior year, she lost her father to brain cancer and her mother to Alzheimer’s. She stopped out for a year and visited cousins in California but returned to Lincoln and earned a B.S. in Education.

Immediately after graduation, Clare moved to California (“carpooling” with several other Nebraskans). She started in Southern California, obtaining her teaching credential at Long Beach State, but in 1968, she moved to the San Francisco Bay area. Within a year, she met the first love of her life, Dan Frischmuth, an engineer at Hewlett Packard. They got married on New Year’s Eve, 1970, and she became a Frischmuth. Sadly, he died of leukemia less than three months later. While recovering from this blow, she alternated between temp jobs and travel. She spent multiple months in Europe, visiting the UK, Switzerland, and Greece. She and her travel mates remember those times as wonderful adventures.

In 1973, Clare became an Administrative Assistant at Saga Corporation (a food and restaurant business). She particularly enjoyed giving tours of the art on display at the corporate offices (art which now resides in the Anderson Collection at Stanford University).

She moved on to human resources or administrative positions at Zoecon (1978), the City of Palo Alto Division of Arts and Culture (1980), and the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology (1994). She continued to travel extensively, visiting Playa Blanca, Guadalajara, Tahiti, Baja California, Japan, Puerta Vallarta, Oaxaca, Hawaii, China, Costa Rica, and Cuernavaca. Clare was a very social person and whatever the gathering, she always knew and engaged someone. An active alumna of AOP, she was also a member of Neighbors Abroad and attended Unity Palo Alto. She enjoyed sports: she snow-skied, water-skied, played tennis and was a regular with local hiking groups. She was active in the lively arts, ushering for multiple local theater companies. Despite all the travel, Clare managed her money well, evidence the fact that she owned condos first in Sunnyvale and then in Mountain View.

In 1997, she met the second love of her life, Cliff Smith. They got married in 2001 and she took the surname Smith. Together, they continued to travel (New England, Hawaii, Alaska, the Columbia River Gorge) and continued to enjoy the lively arts (plays, operas, concerts and First Friday art walks in Palo Alto).

In 2007, Clare left the corporate world to teach ceramics and collage at senior communities, first for Kids at Heart, then on her own. When doing so, her teaching nature sparked her support and encouragement of clients who had dementia or other disabilities.

Clare was a strong and independent woman. She dealt with the untimely loss of both her parents and her first husband. She was adventurous, moving from Nebraska to California based on a force of will, then traveling extensively throughout her life. She was resourceful, outgoing, creative, and successful.

She was predeceased by her parents and first husband (Dan Frischmuth). She leaves her husband of 25 years, Cliff Smith. They had no children.