JACKSON — Catchings Baird Smith died Oct. 6, 2009, at St. Dominic’s Hospital in Jackson. Funeral services will be at St. James on Thursday, Oct. 8, 2009, at 11 a.m.

Catch was born in Greenville on Jan. 15, 1925, to George Kennebrew Smith and Nancy Clendenin Baird Smith. He spent most of his youth in Indianola and the Mississippi Delta. His high school years were spent at Sewanee Military Academy in Sewanee, Tenn., and Greenwood High School in Greenwood. He attended the University of Virginia and graduated from Tulane University in New Orleans. He served in the U.S. Air Force in World War II and was stationed in Hawaii and Saipan. 

His career in the financial industry began with Anderson Clayton in Houston, Texas. In 1950, he joined the Jackson office of Merrill Lynch and retired after 50 years in 2000. He was a member of Merrill’s prestigious Chairman’s Club since its beginning and the Charles E. Merrill Circle.

A longtime member of St. James Episcopal Church, he was a former senior and junior warden and a licensed lay worship leader. He was also a member of the Paul Harris Foundation of Rotary International and a trustee of the University of the South in Sewanee and All Saints’ Episcopal School in Vicksburg. He was also an officer in the English Speaking Union.

He is survived by Lottie Louise Lee Smith, his wife of 59 years. He is also survived by a son, Baird Smith of Monteagle, Tenn., and daughters, Sharon Miller and husband, Jim, of Vicksburg and Melissa Patterson and husband, David, of Canton. He has three grandchildren, Andrea Miller Pound of Birmingham, Ala., Elisabeth Miller of Port Gibson and Randolph Miller of Troy, Ala.; and two great-grandchildren, Ann Elise and Lottie Pound of Birmingham. He is also survived by two brothers, George Faison Smith and wife, Grace, of Jackson and their two sons, Brannon and Jonathan, and Richard Clendenin Smith and wife, Emme, of San Antonio, Texas, and their two sons, Brian and Trevor.

Memorials may be made to St. James Episcopal Church, 3921 Oakridge Drive, Jackson, MS 39216.