Anita Elizabeth Lewis

Anita Elizabeth Lewis passed away on June 16, 2025. Anita was born on May 29, 1931, in Brooklyn, New York to Wilson and Viola (Kocher) Smith.

In her early career she was Secretary for St Regis paper Company. Where she met her husband Herbert Lewis and they married October 9, 1955. They moved to Bethpage NY, where their daughter Deborah was born. Anita and her husband were married 50 years when he passed in 2005. She worked for the National AutoTheft Bureau and retired after 20 years of service. She followed Deborah and Spencer to Tennessee after her husband's passing and settled in Gallatin in 2006. In her spare time, she loved to crochet and knit, puttering in the garden, snooping in the stores, walking, listening to music, dancing, watching Fox news, and cheering on her Grandson and his friends at any sports event they were involved in, and she was always prepared with her cow bells, signs, pompoms and team logo. She loved chocolate especially with nuts and Mallowmars were her favorite. She was known by many names Mom, Grandma, Anita, Ms. L, Miss Anita, Aunt Nita, and affectionately known as Gma and she sometime be heard saying "I 'm The Mother". She volunteered for the American Cancer Society, Board of elections and supported the Station Camp Quarter Back Club and you would find her serving up team’s meals even after her Grandson Mathew graduated.

She had an amazing love of life and shared that with anyone who met her. Anita made sure everyone knew she loved them. It was rare you ever saw her without her smile and if you weren't she would somehow be able to make you. She would say a smile can never be kept, it can only be given away and that is what she did. Her Grandson Matt was her world, and Jessica was her special girl.

She was an amazing woman who touched so many lives and left us all with a little piece of her heart and amazing memories.

Anita is preceded in death by her parents Wilson and Viola Smith, her loving husband Herbert Lewis, and her son-in-law Spencer James. She is survived by her daughter Deborah James, and her grandson Mathew (Jessica Taylor) James. In addition, she is survived by her large extended family, Carmella DiNuzzo, Missy and Jeremy Weir, Warren and Karen James, Christopher James, Lindsay and Mike Pagano, Jeaena and Stanley Opalach, Katie and Alex Semidey, along with the Willard and Bruzzoni families and hundreds of adopted grandchildren.

A gathering will be held on Friday, June 20, 2025, from 4pm-8pm at Hendersonville Funeral Home. Anita will return home to New York for services and a burial at a later date.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to The American Cancer Society or The American Heart Association.