Married to two powerful Washington, D.C., insiders, Jean Webb Vaughan Smith liked to joke that she must have always wanted to run things. And during a time when most women—even those who graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa—got married after graduation and stayed home to raise a family, Smith became an influential leader herself. She headed the Junior League, served on the boards of other charitable organizations and became one of first lady Nancy Reagan's closest friends and confidantes.
Smith, '40, died of natural causes in Los Angeles on January 25. She was 93.
A Los Angeles native and third-generation Californian, Smith went to Stanford to study Greek and Latin. There she met George William Vaughan whom she married in 1942. They settled in Los Angeles after World War II and raised their two children there. Smith joined the Los Angeles chapter of the Junior League, where she rose to president of the chapter, then western regional director and finally national president from 1958 to 1960. Meanwhile, her husband served as assistant secretary of defense under President Eisenhower.
After Vaughan died in 1963, Jean Smith worked briefly for the Mark Hopkins hotel in San Francisco where she met her second husband, William French Smith. They were married in 1964.
Smith served on the boards of the Blue Ribbon, Children's Hospital Los Angeles, the United Way, the American Red Cross, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the California Arts Commission. She also served on the President's Advisory Commission on White House Fellowships.
When her second husband made the leap from Ronald Reagan's personal lawyer and business adviser to attorney general, the Smiths flourished as active members of the Washington, D.C., social scene.
Smith was renowned for her intelligence, charm and sense of humor. "I believe her charm, brains and friendships had a lot to do with propelling William French Smith into the circle surrounding Ronald Reagan and on to becoming attorney general," says her son-in-law, Jerry Dunn, '68. She is survived by her son, Bill Vaughan, and her daughter, Merry Vaughan Dunn, and five grandchildren.
Julie Muller Mitchell, ’79, is a writer in San Francisco.
