Joan “Jay” Smith Rogers

TRENTON/BAR HARBOR – Joan “Jay” Smith Rogers, 96, was born May 20, 1928, in Worcester, Mass., to Ralph N. and Marion H. (White) Smith. She died August 23, 2024, in Bar Harbor, Maine. She spent nearly 96 summers at her beloved Shady Nook in Trenton, many of them near her older brother Doug and his family.

Jay graduated from Colby College in Waterville, Maine. During Jay’s years at Colby, Jay met A. Raymond Rogers, Jr., and they married in 1948. They raised five children, Betsy, Kimberly, Daniel, Robin and Brian, living in Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York, as Ray took on new school administrative positions, before retiring to Waterville and Trenton.

Jay and Ray were mainstays of the Waterville Universalist Unitarian Church, and its Evening Sandwich Program until Ray died in 2013. Three years later Jay moved to Birch Bay Retirement Community in Bar Harbor, where she regularly said she was “well fed and well taken care of.” She loved the staff and activities at Birch Bay as she progressed from independent living to assisted living to memory care.

Jay’s life was full of family and activities. In addition to her active involvement in church-related activities, she and Ray bought and sold antiques, spending time refinishing old chests for sale and perusing yard sales. She was an active knitter, making scarves, hats and other crocheted items for family and for sale. She loved cooking, reading and collecting. Jay had a remarkably artistic approach to life, with eclectic style in clothing and decorating, upcycling long before that term emerged. She was known for her quirky sense of humor.

During retirement years, Jay and Ray traveled extensively – first to Alaska where at various times all of their children lived; they then explored England, Wales, France, and Italy, delighting in food, culture, and history. Jay took pride in dusting off her French language skills.

She loved music her whole life, especially Artie Shaw, Ella Fitzgerald, Edith Piaf, Billie Holiday, almost any musical, Michael Feinstein, and Barbara Cook. A dedicated diarist, she joked about the eventual publication of the many notebooks in which she recorded the flow of each day.

She is survived by her children Betsy (Matt Hagen) of Seattle, Wash., Kimberly (David Cory) of Fairbanks, Alaska and Bisbee, Ariz., Daniel (Gung Sri) of Ubud, Bali, Robin (Bill McDiarmid) of Chapel Hill, NC and Brian (Sherry Modrow) of Port Townsend, Wash.; grandchildren Chris, Cassidy, Dylan, Tracy, Joyana, Austen, Natalia, and Nathan; great-grandchildren Wesley, Ray, Brooke, Avery and Kai; and brother-in-law Manley, sister-in law Mary; and many nieces and nephews.

A memorial will be held next summer in Shady Nook when the whole family can gather.

Condolences may be expressed at www.jordanfernald.com