Mary Frances Blanchard Walton, 95, who worked for many years as a secretary at the Travelers Insurance headquarters in New Orleans, passed away on May 22 in Denham Springs, La. after a brief illness.
Mrs. Walton, the daughter of the late James Blanchard and Mary Elzine Brashears, grew up in Shelby, a small town in the Mississippi Delta. A friendly woman of sweet disposition, she enjoyed her work at Travelers but not nearly as much as she enjoyed her children and grandchildren. She was a member of First Baptist Church of New Orleans for many years and most recently, Faith Baptist Church in Metairie, La. She could often be found reading the Bible in the quiet of her bedroom.
A woman of good humor, she loved sweets, especially pies, ice cream and yogurt, yet never seemed to add an ounce to her willowy frame.
She and her late husband, Charles Walton of Duncan, Miss., were madly in love. A Korean War veteran, he served a tour of duty there as a military policeman. Upon his discharge from the Air Force, the couple set up housekeeping in a tiny apartment for returning veterans at Ole Miss, where he and his wife got their degrees.
It was there that their first child, Sharon Elzine Walton, was born with a serious heart defect that took her life as a young college student. For the rest of her life, Mary would take solace in her late daughter’s poetry. They later had a son, Charles Frank Walton Jr., who resides in New Orleans.
She was cared for in the last year of her life by her beloved granddaughter Katie Lynne Cornett of Denham Springs.
Mrs. Walton outlived her husband Charles; her brother James Blanchard of New Orleans, her sister, Elzine Blanchard Rose of Memphis; niece Ann Blanchard; and nephew James Blanchard III, all of New Orleans.
She is survived by her son Charles, nieces Gail Rose Harrell of Memphis and Harriet Blanchard of New Orleans, nephews Bill and Jim Rose of Oxford, MS; granddaughter Katie Cornett of Denham Springs, La., grandson Charles Frank Walton III of New Orleans, and great grandsons Brylen Wilder and Bennett Wilder, great granddaughter Brynn Cornett, all of Denham Springs, and grandnephew Anthem Blanchard of Bartlesville, Oklahoma.
