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HOLLADAY — Stephen Smith and his wife, Janine, were going to have a date night after he was done working a service call for his company, Quality Pool and Spas, on June 24. But he never made it home, she said.
Her husband was fixing a pool filter when the filter's top apparently popped off — shooting up and shattering his skull, Janine Smith said. Her voice trembled as she described seeing some of the pictures of her husband after he'd received the fatal injuries.
In response to the tragedy, his friends, neighbors and family members rallied around Janine Smith and her two daughters, raising $12,000 from a GoFundMe* campaign to support the family after his death.
The money will go toward not just assisting the Smiths with overwhelming "end-of-life" medical bills, but will finish off any outdoor projects that Stephen Smith had started in his backyard, according to Greg Anderson, the organizer of the fundraising campaign and neighbor to the Smiths.
"He is a very handy guy, and he had completely rebuilt their backyard," Anderson said.
He added that Smith, 42, had ripped off the back deck to his house and then rebuilt it, also building a separate area of the yard for his wife to do her gardening. But the craftsman "hadn't finished it yet" before he died, having originally planned to finish it while his wife and daughters went on vacation later that week.
Anderson added that in an effort to help Janine Smith, the neighbors and the funds from the GoFundMe would help provide the money necessary to finish building the retaining wall and fenced-off area for her garden, completing a project that her husband could no longer finish.
"We thought that was a great way to help her and maybe remember him a little bit," Anderson said.
And Stephen Smith didn't just love outdoor projects — he was passionate about serving, his wife said. As a search and rescue volunteer for the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office, he would often respond to distress calls from hikers and those in dangerous situations.
Smith had met her husband when she was working in the Air Force, and he was an Air Force Reserve flight nurse. Stephen Smith then worked as a nurse at the University of Utah before working for Quality Pool and Spas, a company he and his wife bought in March 2022.
He wasn't just a man who loved serving and helping others, she continued, but he enjoyed learning new hobbies, like cooking and welding — and sharing any of his talents with his daughters.
"He was all things to all people. I mean, he was like, the living breathing Captain America," Janine Smith said, her voice trembling. "His archetype is the hero. And that's what he likes to be for everybody, no matter how small that is."
Whenever her husband would come home from his search and rescue missions or his work helping people with their pools, she noted how he would spend time playing games with their daughters or teaching them how to cook.
"It was really important for him to teach the girls how to do things and he would just spend a lot of time showing them how things work," she said.
In the aftermath of her husband's death, Smith noted how much she was surprised at the influx of love from her neighbors, friends, and even others she didn't know, with many sending her and her daughters gifts and meals.
"The week after he died, hundreds of people have sent me things — I don't even know who they are," Smith said. "I am so thankful for all the support. I didn't know how much I would need all of that."
With the way the Smiths had shown their love to the neighborhood, however, Anderson noted that her friends and neighbors were simply sending back the love they'd already been given.
"The money's nice, the money's important," Anderson said. "But this is a guy who deserves to be honored and deserves to be remembered."
*KSL.com does not assure that the money deposited to the account will be applied for the benefit of the persons named as beneficiaries. If you are considering a deposit to the account, you should consult your own advisers and otherwise proceed at your own risk.
