Many of our readers have met Cousin Blanche...or know of her from this Blog. Her home is on Howard Street, and I spent many an hour there listening to her share stories about Ocracoke from years ago. Blanche is currently a resident of Spring Arbor, an assisted living facility in Kill Devil Hills. In December she celebrated her 98th birthday. Lachlan and I visited her recently, and we enjoyed a pleasant hour of conversation, catching up on family and friends, remembering island history, and discussing the current news. A few months ago, when Amy and I visited Blanche, one of the other residents stopped to ask us if we had been visiting Miss Blanche. "Yes, we were," I answered. "Well, she must have the most friends," the woman replied, "she gets more visitors than anyone else!"
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| Blanche & Amy Howard, 2011 |
Blanche is the daughter of Stacy and Elizabeth Ballance Howard. I recently stumbled across a web page with photos and brief biographies of Stacy and Elizabeth. You can view it here:
http://www.ncgenweb.us/hyde/photosbios/howardstacy_elizabeth.html.
Our latest Ocracoke Newsletter, a newspaper article published in 1923 titled "Quaintest Town in America," provides a fascinating glimpse of Ocracoke Island life a
century ago. You can read it here:
https://www.villagecraftsmen.com/quaintest-town-america-n-c-island/ .
I missed this. Please tell Blanche hello and Happy Belated Birthday and give her our love. She may not remember us, but she continues to make a wonderful impression on both my wife and I. Hopefully she got the book I sent and enjoyed reading it.
ReplyDeleteWe, like you... had some SERIOUS weather lately, that put anything "internet" on a long pause...
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