Evelyn Blanchard Obituary – (1924 – 2021) – Milford, NH

Evelyn M. Blanchard, age 96, lifetime resident of Milford, NH died March 4 at The Hunt Community, in Nashua, NH. Born March 19, 1924, the daughter of Carroll H. Blanchard, Sr. and Alice L. (O’Brien) Blanchard, Evelyn grew up in Milford, NH. Her poetry describes an idyllic early childhood living with her mother and father, brother and two sisters, at Highland Farm on Federal Hill, wherever every cow was petted and named, and the horse a buddy. There ended up chickens, and 3 geese, also welcoming. Evelyn typically connected tales of these pleased days helping with the haying by riding on top of a hay load to tread it down, weeding in the backyard garden, choosing wildflowers in the fields and woods, and sliding on the hills. She remembered riding the teach to Greenfield, NH, with her sister, to visit grandmother and uncles and the nice summers with them at their household and outings at their hunting camp.

As a youngster she was a female scout, earning badges and marketing cookies and energetic in 4H, earning ribbons for sewing, and the canning of fruits and greens exhibited in county fairs. She attended the Garden Street Elementary College and graduated in 1942 from Milford Higher College (Elm Avenue). In large college she was once more an exceptional scholar with a lot of things to do, highlighted with her collection in 1941 to show up at the 1st Girl’s Condition of NH held at the University of NH in Durham, one of only fifty NH substantial faculty women. Knowing she desired a vocation in company, she studied bookkeeping, shorthand and typing. Her competencies opened up opportunities for practical get the job done as a volunteer and portion time aide at the school and neighborhood firms. For case in point, she was instrumental in reorganizing the filing process in the principal’s office. In Oct of 1938 the relatives experienced the fantastic hurricane and that similar Oct the dying of their daughter and little sister. The adhering to March, they offered the farm and moved to Union Avenue “in city” in which Evelyn lived for over fifty many years.

A class of ’42 excursion to New York Town whet her hunger for travel which she pursued at just about every possibility. There ended up several auto journeys with her sister Olive to American heritage web-sites, and Montreal, Canada viewing pals on the U.S. Virgin Island of St. Croix. The very last was a tour of Italy with Franciscan buddies visiting Florence, Rome, and Assisi adhering to the footprints of St. Francis of Assisi and St. Clare. She especially liked an audience with Pope John Paul II.

Following graduation from high faculty, Globe War II was on and classmate boys entered the support whilst classmate women became used in war support work. Evelyn acknowledged the posture of Main Clerk of Selective Provider Board No. 12 (draft board), located in the Milford Town Corridor, the place she supervised 3, and usually five assistant clerks, and presided overboard conferences. Selective Provider Board 12 was a large territory, consisting of a lot of towns, and often Evelyn was expected to be at the City Hall business office at 5:00 a.m. to indicator in 100-200 men, appoint a foreman, and see them off on the bus to Manchester for assessment, ready to indication them again in on their return, or to send out them off to Fort Devens, Ayer, MA for induction into the army. She was employed in that position for five several years, until finally the war finished.

She then worked a handful of years for Public Assistance Co. of NH right before becoming a member of The O.K. Software Company, Inc., and Williams & Hussey Equipment Co. She took night courses learning company accounting at the former Nashua Organization School and was a Notary Public. At The O.K. Software Co. she worked as an Government Assistant performing the secretarial perform for several C.E.O.s. Her further tasks involved getting ready for, and location up regular monthly board meetings, and once-a-year stockholders’ conferences. Her accounting functions integrated basic ledgers, gross gain, accounts receivable, accounts payable, incoming get reports, quarterly and yearly reviews, inventories and was able to cover for other office staff members when they have been absent. She was adept in the IBM punched card technique and was instrumental in environment the procedure up. Later on, when the punched card method was transferred to laptop, she again assisted in getting that up and operating. When O.K. Device Co. was sold, Evelyn ongoing with Williams & Hussey Equipment Co., Inc. when they moved to Wilton till she retired in 1998. (It took 3 people today to change her.)

Some of Evelyn’s group activities provided: the O.W. Lull Woman’s Reduction Corps, Auxiliary to The Grand Army of the Republic and a 25-year member of Granite Grange of Milford, with Pomona Grange, Condition Grange and Countrywide Grange. She was a communicant of St. Patrick Catholic Church if Milford, NH. She was a everyday living extended choir member, beginning in junior choir and then transferring into senior choir. For fourteen years she played the church organ and directed a kid’s choir. For a variety of many years she belonged to the Diocesan choir of St. Joseph Cathedral, Manchester, NH, and the “Messiah Sing” of Mont Vernon, NH. She was a very long time Rosary Altar Modern society member of St. Patrick Church, keeping many offices, President, Secretary, Vice President, and member of the Board of Directors. April 26, l976, Evelyn turned a Professed Secular Franciscan, with St. Anthony of Padua Fraternity, Blessed Sacrament Church in Manchester, NH in time using her transform as secretary and council member. She participated for a number of decades with the non-denominational nearby bible review team, The Amherst/Milford Bible Study, at St. Patrick Church, Milford, NH. Also, she was a long time member of the Milford Historic Society in which she was also secretary for a range of many years.

Soon after retirement, Evelyn devoted considerably time in volunteering operate. She was a Eucharistic Minister, serving at St. Patrick Church and volunteered with some others for many decades in using The Eucharist to patients at Crestwood Nursing residence and reciting the rosary there. She volunteered for “Share” at the Apparel Barn at St. Patrick. She liked summertime ‘050’ outings for seniors sponsored by the Milford Baptist church. Her passions were being stamp collecting, producing to friends, enjoying the organ, cross phrase puzzles, going for walks, looking at, computer system games, and in early many years savored crocheting, knitting and embroidering, and oil portray.

She was a poet, owning composed quite a few poems, some of which were being revealed in The Union Leader, The Milford Cupboard, Beliefs Journal, and The National Library of Congress Poetry Anthologies. A different publication was in Prayers From Franciscan Hearts, St Anthony Messenger Press, 2007. In 2010 she published a reserve of poems, “Peace and Other Poems” and appreciated a working day of signing at the Toadstool Bookstore, now in Nashua, NH. In the preamble to her poetry guide, she describes her producing philosophy as, composing “what was in my coronary heart” at the time “I am a lover of the divine and the magnificence of character … I have a deep feeling for the joys and sorrows, loves and fantasies of individuals of all ages, and … still see the amusing facet of lifestyle.” This resulted in her getting a wonderful listener, a dear good friend and a great conversationalist much loved by lots of persons of all ages and walks of everyday living. Could she herself now relaxation in peace.

Evelyn was predeceased by her minor sister, Ruth Alice Blanchard, her father Carroll H. Blanchard, Sr., her mother Alice L. Blanchard, her brother Carroll H. Blanchard, Jr., who served in the Korean Conflict and saw considerably major combating, her sister Olive M. Thurston, grandparents, aunts and uncles and several cousins.

She will be buried at Greenvale Cemetery, Greenfield, NH in the late spring. In lieu of bouquets, donations in her memory might be created to Share Outreach, Inc., 1 Columbus Avenue, Milford, NH 03055 or Boys & Women Club of Souhegan Valley, 56 Mont Vernon Road, P.O. Box 916, Milford, NH 03055. Preparations are in the treatment of Smith & Heald Funeral Household, 63 Elm Road, Milford. To share a memory or offer you a condolence, be sure to go to www.smith-heald.com