Life story

"DIANE SMITH OBITUARY


Diane Ivonne Smith was born Diane Taylor on November 13, 1947 in Pasay City, Philippines. Her mother was Magdalena Oñang, her father was Dana Ivan Taylor.

When Diane was 18 months old, her mother and father moved to America, bringing Diane with them. They first lived briefly in New Mexico, then moved to California, where Diane spent her childhood living along the canals in Venice, California. She attended Catholic School in Venice; she used to walk to school along Venice Beach (which would become famous one day). Diane’s sister, Anita, was born in 1951 in Venice, California. Diane’s mother divorced from her father in 1958 and married Kenzo Mayeda. Diane’s brother, Jeffrey, was born in Santa Monica, California in 1959. When Diane was 14 years old, Magdalena and Kenzo moved to Thousand Oaks, California where Diane attended Thousand Oaks High School. Diane’s half-sister, Jeanne, joined the Mayeda family in Thousand Oaks. Diane was a star student, and loved mathematics. She won a full academic scholarship to University of California Los Angeles, which she attended for 1 year. After that she moved to Hollywood for a time, where she lived on her own, bridging the “coming of age” gap as she morphed from adolescence into adulthood. She then attended University of Southern California Nursing School, graduating as a Registered Nurse in 1970.

She then worked at Veteran’s Hospital in Los Angeles and in San Francisco. She married George Mowry in 1972 in Monterey, California and became a stepmother to his two children: Anna and Derrick. She so highly impressed the doctors with whom she worked in Bakersfield Hospital that they recommended her to be admitted into the newly formed Nurse Practitioners program, and she became a Certified Nurse Practitioner.
She was divorced from George Mowry in 1977. After her divorce, Diane became an international traveler for several years; her sister Anita accompanied her for a while on these journeys. They moved to the Philippines for 6 months or so, then lived in Bali, Indonesia for a year. Then moved to Singapore, and then Thailand. Anita went back home to America, and Diane moved to India where she lived for several years.
Eventually Diane ended up living in Germany in Baden-Baden, where she owned and operated a Steakhouse near an Australian Military Base. It was there that she decided to have private detectives locate Jimmy Smith, who was living in Beverly Hills, California at the time. She and Jimmy had been together when he was a rotating-surgical intern at University of Southern California - L.A. County Hospital and Diane was a senior nursing student there at the time in 1969. They separated and were apart for 20 years before reuniting. In 1989 they married in the Black Forest in Germany and honeymooned in Champagne region of France. Diane joined Jimmy in Beverly Hills; they soon moved to Diamond Bar, California where Diane ran the business aspect of Jimmy’s radiology practice, bringing Apple Mac computing into the practice. Diane and Jimmy visited and traveled extensively throughout France, for the next 15 years. In 1996 Jimmy took a position as Chief of Radiology at Tazewell Community Hospital in a small town in Southwest Virginia and, using Mac computers, Diane built and ran the billing service (using relational database software that she programmed herself) and managed the financial affairs of the thriving practice; they lived there until Jimmy semi-retired in 2003 and they moved to Hawaii, where Diane managed Jimmy’s Locum Tenens practice until 2012, when they fully retired. They first lived on the Big island for a year, then moved to Kaneohe, Oahu; then they moved to Waikiki in 2005.

In 1994, Diane began to have symptoms of her newly diagnosed Polycystic Liver Disease and Polycystic Kidney Disease. Other female Oñang family members had had this inherited genetic disease, and her mother, Magdalena, died from this disease in 1970 at Cedar’s Sanai Hospital in Los Angeles, following a kidney transplant. Diane’s liver problems mounted until she was forced to have life-saving liver surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota in 1998. Following an extremely difficult post-op recovery period, Diane was able to live a “normal” life, with some limitations, for many years. She formed an international chat group devoted to sharing empirical and research knowledge about polycystic disease. Diane published two books about the PK Diet and she programmed and distributed two iPhone apps on the Apple app store about the PKDiet. She began to have serious symptoms in 2014, and in 2018 began having falling episodes resulting in fractures, including a hip fracture in 2022 that marked the beginning of a long period of downward health for Diane. Her liver had been trying to kill her for 25 years; she fought valiantly for a long time. But she eventually succumbed to complications of her polycystic disease, and on October 30, 2024 she died sleeping peacefully in her own bed at home, attended by her loving husband Jimmy and her devoted home-care nurses. Right up to the end, Diane’s mind and spirit were still willing; but her body gave out.  

Diane was a very upbeat, happy person, who loved to laugh.  Even now, she wouldn’t want any of us to be sad.  She would want happiness around her.

Loved ones and friends are planning a Hawaiian outrigger scattering of her ashes on the ocean. 

Diane is survived by her brother Jeffrey Mayeda, her sister Jeanne Nichols, her step-father Kenzo Mayeda, her step-daughters Anna Mowry and Kara Anita Smith and by her loving and devoted husband, Jimmy. She will be missed deeply.


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