Emma Frances Smelley Kemp, 98, known as Frances in Screven County and Emma Frances or Mink to the family members she grew up with, passed away in Sylvania among family members on Friday, November 7, 2025.

Frances was born on February 24, 1927, to Ima Lemmond and Robert Festus Smelley. The birth happened at home down a dirt road outside Lula, Ga., in the foothills of what Sidney Lanier called, in his poem-entitled song, “Song of the Chattahoochee,” the Hills of Habersham.

She graduated from Gillsville High School, among a class of six, in 1944. The following week, she moved to Atlanta to live with a pair of maternal aunts, Alice and Margaret Lemmond, and her maternal grandmother, Emma Lemmond. They lived at 356 Sixth Street.

Aunt Alice had arranged a job for her with Colonial Stores, whe

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