Smith was born as Sarah Jane Fraser in Port Mouton, Nova Scotia, Canada, on 13 December 1912. She was the third youngest child of the twelve children born to Walter and Henrietta (Trott) Fraser. She attended the small school in Central Port Mouton, near the Port Mouton Baptist Church, near her family’s home. She completed grade 10. With her family she regularly attended the Port Mouton Baptist Church, where she sang in the church choir.

While walking with her friends, she met a young man from Cape Sable Island, Murray Smith, who came driving through Port Mouton in his Model T Ford. He stopped and asked the group of girls if they wanted to go for a drive in his car. The girls accepted his offer. Murray had moved to Liverpool and was an auto mechanic, and Sarah moved there in her twenties. After few years, they got married, and later lived on Meadow Pond Lane in Liverpool, where they had a small farm.

Her husband died in 1993 at the age of 88. They were married for 51 years. Around the age of 101, she moved back to Port Mouton.

At the age of 104, she had one living son, Jim, who lived in New Brunswick, as well as two granddaughters and four great-grandchildren.

Smith passed away in Liverpool, Nova Scotia, Canada, on 19 March 2022, at the age of 110 years, 96 days.