Rev. Hugh W. Smith, former director of public relations for International Ministries of the American Baptist Churches in the U.S., died at Elm Terrace Gardens in Lansdale, Penn., on Dec. 15. He was 81.

Fluent in Chinese, Rev. Smith worked for two decades with churches in south China.

Born in 1927 in Quincy as the sixth of nine children, as a boy Hugh sold apples and newspapers on the streets of Boston during the Depression. He left high school to work as a welder in Quincy’s Fore River shipyard during World War II, and then served in the Navy from 1944 to 1946, seeing duty in the western Pacific. A year after graduating from Gordon College in Wenham in 1953, he married Ann Hamer, with whom he had grown up after his family relocated in his childhood to the Upham’s Corner neighborhood of Dorchester. He earned his master’s of divinity degree at Andover-Newton Theological School in Newton and was ordained in 1957 while serving as pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in Providence, R.I.

Commissioned as American Baptist missionaries in 1957, Reverend and Mrs. Smith arrived in Hong Kong in early 1958 at the invitation of the Swatow Baptist Churches, to work among the Swatow-speaking Chinese minority group. Their hard-earned fluency in the Swatow dialect (they were among a mere handful of Westerners who mastered it) opened many doors for service among Swatow communities in Hong Kong, China’s Guangdong province, and in Southeast Asia. Rev. Smith was a leader in providing U.S. and Church World Service aid in Hong Kong to the thousands of refugees who fled there in the late 1950s and early 1960s due to instability in China. He and his colleagues also labored to provide schools, youth groups, drug rehabilitation and other social services in the turbulent growth of those times. A frequent preacher in Swatow-language church services, he mentored several new generations of Christian pastors and leaders.

Rev. Smith was renowned for his sense of humor and ability to connect with all the citizens in Hong Kong, rich and poor alike. On one occasion he gave a lift to an anxious-looking young couple, whom he had noticed at a remote rural bus stop, only to discover that the woman was about to give birth. They made it to the hospital in time, and the grateful husband sent him a gift every Christmas thereafter. On other occasions he accompanied poor hawkers and day-laborers to court to help them in disputes. He was always looking for ways to help and encourage people.

As director of public relations for International Ministries after 1976, Rev. Smith traveled the U.S. and the world to promote the holistic mission work that is the hallmark of American Baptist Churches’ ministry. His work took him to more than 30 nations. A tireless advocate for reconciliation and peace, he hosted delegations of Russian pastors for visits with U.S. churches during the height of the Cold War. In 1998, at the invitation of the Swatow Baptist Churches in China, Reverend Smith and his wife travelled to the Swatow region where he preached at dozens of churches and gatherings.

After moving from Hong Kong to Pennsylvania, Reverend Smith lived in King of Prussia, St. Davids and Doyles-town. Throughout his world travels, he stayed connected to his Massachusetts roots, and starting in the mid-1980s enjoyed spending summers on Martha’s Vineyard at his home near Lagoon Pond in Oak Bluffs. On the Island Reverend Smith especially enjoyed deep-sea fishing and surf-casting, his friends at the First Baptist Church of Vineyard Haven where the Smiths both sang in the choir, Linda Jean’s, community sings at the Camp Ground, and lobster roll night at Grace Church.

Reverend Smith’s many enthusiasms included amateur boxing while in the Navy and singing (especially with his eight brothers and sisters and their families when they gathered in the Boston area). A natural musician, he loved to play the piano, and could pick up and play nearly any instrument; his piano was heaped with instruments he brought home from his travels, and after moving to Pennsylvania he taught himself to play a saw that he purchased at Sears. Equally at home on the deck of a seagoing fishing junk as behind the pulpit, Rev. Smith particularly loved the ocean and was an avid scuba-diver and fisherman. He was a master storyteller famous for elaborate jokes ending in puns, and real-life stories of adventures as a child and during his years abroad; he also invented bedtime stories for his children and grandchildren.

In addition to his wife of 54 years, he is survived by two sisters, Helen S. Leneten of Newton Centre, and Phyllis Robertson of Danvers; two brothers, George of Halifax and Robert of Knoxville, Iowa; sons Stephen of Hamilton and Timothy of Berwyn, Penn., daughters Jennifer A. Beers of Chalfont, Penn., and Karen R. Smith of Chiang Mai, Thailand; four grandchildren and nearly three dozen nieces and nephews.

A celebration of his life will be held on Jan. 17, 2009, at the New Britain Baptist Church of New Britain, Pennsylvania.