If you walked into Washtenaw Dairy on any given morning, you were likely to be greeted by Jim Smith, affectionately called "Big Jim" by the crowd who gathered there daily for coffee, doughnuts, and conversation.

Jim, who took over his half of the business from his dad, Jim, Jr., ran the day-to-day operations with his business partner, Doug Raab. If you expressed an interest, Big Jim would pull out the photo album and show you pictures of the Dairy going back to 1934, when it first opened as a dairy, bottling milk and selling ice cream.

He'd also be the first to offer his support to just about any local organization that asked, providing countless boxes of the shop's famous friedcake doughnuts or tubs of ice cream.

"We support the community, because the community supports us. That's why it's worked all these years," Smith told The Ann Arbor News in 2012.

"It adds up on your bottom line, but these same people come down with their families and buy ice cream. They've come for years and supported us."

Washtenaw Dairy co-owner Jim Smith smiles as he mans the ice cream counter at the shop in this file photo. Melanie Maxwell I MLive.com

Jim Smith, a resident of Chelsea, passed away Tuesday at the age of 63. He is survived by his wife of 23 years, Candice Lee Cannon.

He will long be remembered for his big heart, his gentle spirit, and his generosity.

Ann Arbor resident Dale Leslie, who can often be found with the morning crowd at Washtenaw Dairy, said Smith was quiet about his generosity, preferring to keep a low profile, whether he was delivering boxes of ice cream bars for the volunteers at the Kiwanis Club, or lending out his hot fudge machine for elementary school ice cream socials.

"Jim also collected teddy bears," remembered Leslie. "He'd collect them all year until Christmas, and then they'd all go out on display in the Dairy. Then around Christmas time, any youthful person of a certain age who came in was offered the opportunity to pick out a teddy bear."

Smith was also an avid hunter, but is perhaps best remembered for a dramatic hunting mishap, according to Leslie.

"One year, Jim went out deer hunting with an old-style flintlock rifle, like you'd use back in the Revolutionary War times," said Leslie. "The story goes that this big buck started to charge Jim. He fired off one shot - which, being an old flintlock rifle, is all he had - but either he missed or that didn't stop the deer, because it barreled right into Jim, and Jim literally had to wrestle for his life with the horns of this big deer. Now I'm sure this story has grown over the years, but word got back to the Dairy that Big Jim had wrestled a deer!'

A gathering of family and friends, where no doubt many more stories of Jim will be swapped, will be held on Friday, February 12, from 2 - 5 p.m. at the Staffan-Mitchell Funeral Home, Chelsea. Expressions of sympathy may be made to Arbor Hospice, Ann Arbor Kiwanis, or Chelsea American Legion.

Jessica Webster covers food and dining for MLive and The Ann Arbor News. Reach her at JessicaWebster@mlive.com. You also can follow her on Twitter and on Google+.