Shinnecock member Bernice D. Smith dies at 85

Her Shinnecock Indian name was Princess Red Fox, and for Bernice Dyson Smith the regal designation was fitting.

Years after she stopped dancing in the tribe's powwows, Smith would still dress in her regalia and stand at the entrance of the big platform to greet the dancers and singers as they were about to perform.

"She had a great love for the people and for the land," said her sister, Shirley Smith.

Bernice Smith died of cardiac arrest Friday at Stony Brook University Medical Center. She was 85.

Smith was born in Brooklyn on Feb. 16, 1925, and moved to the Shinnecock reservation when she was a girl. She was educated at the Southampton reservation's one-room schoolhouse before moving back to the city, where she graduated from Franklin K. Lane High School in Jamaica, Queens.

In 1948, she married Charles Kellis Smith, who became the tribe's longest-serving trustee, serving on the board for more than two decades, Shirley Smith said.

Bernice Smith and her husband, who both lived on the reservation, had seven children. While running the household and raising her children, Smith also worked as a telephone operator for New York Telephone Co. and as a Sunday school teacher and junior choir director with the Shinnecock Presbyterian Church, her sister said.

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"Along with having as many children as she did, she realized children need to be well-rounded and well-educated, both spiritually and academically," Shirley Smith said.

After retiring from the telephone company, Bernice Smith went on to work as director of the Shinnecock Senior Nutrition Program.

"She just had a love of working with people and for people," Shirley Smith said.

In her later years, Bernice Smith enjoyed playing word games, listening to Barry White records and spending time with her family, her sister said. She also enjoyed cooking, and would regularly set up a booth at the tribe's powwows to sell her homemade succotash, Shirley Smith said.

She also is survived by daughters Denise Anderson of Australia, and Jacqueline Onco and Mabel Cuffee, both of the Shinnecock reservation; sons Gerrod Smith, Jonathan Smith and Charles Kellis II, all of the reservation; another sister, Arlene Butler, of the reservation; and numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

She was predeceased by her husband and a son, Lamont Smith.

A wake will be held at Brockett Funeral Home in Southampton on Wednesday from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. A funeral service will be held at the Shinnecock Presbyterian Church on Thursday at 1 p.m. Smith will be buried at the Shinnecock Cemetery.