Early Years, Education, Military, Family
Blair was the third of eight children born in a sharecropping family to Alabama native Homer Franklin Blair (1889–1956) and the Mississippi native, the former Hersie Elnora Pearson (1888–1979), in tiny Morgantown in Marion County near Columbia in southwestern Mississippi. Blair grew up in Sicily Island, a small community in Catahoula Parish northeast of Alexandria.
After he graduated from Sicily Island High School in 1934, 18-year-old Cecil Blair, with virtually no money, went to Ruston, the seat of Lincoln Parish to attend Louisiana Tech University. He worked his way through college and completed a bachelor of science degree in biology in 1938. At Tech, he met the love of his life, the former Virginia Susan Ruth "Susie" George (March 4, 1917 - May 1, 2005). After graduation, Cecil decided to enroll in graduate school at Louisiana State University to procure a master of science degree in his chosen field of entomology, and Susie joined him at LSU to complete her studies.
Susie Blair, the daughter of the Reverend Albert George and the former Ruth Hoffpauir, grew up in Methodist parsonages throughout the state. She was born in the village of Bonita in Morehouse Parish in northeast Louisiana. Susie was an author of two children's books, which focused on life around the Blair farm. The book Easter Pony received international acclaim and was listed as one of the year's best books by the American Library Association in the year it was published. She also had unrealized talent for art, which particularly showed up in the next generation through her older son and younger daughter.
The couple moved to Alexandria in 1940. They had four children: Rebecca "Becky" Blair Tisdale (born 1942), Richard "Nippy" Blair (born 1943), Robert Blair (born 1948), all of Alexandria, and Jane Blair Couvillon (1950-1988: a cancer victim). Becky is a retired teacher and the widow of history professor Garry Lee Tisdale, a native of Tyler, Texas. Tisdale began teaching at Louisiana State University at Alexandria in 1966. He died of brain cancer in 2000 at the age of fifty-six, and LSUA subsequently honored him with the naming of Garry Tisdale Drive on the campus. Robert "Bobby" Blair runs the Blair farm and Blair's former vegetable stand called the "Old Gray Mule", a favorite gathering place for Louisiana politicos off U.S. Highway 71 near the farm. It was at the Old Gray Mule that Blair developed his skills as a raconteur. He dubbed his farm "The Sweet Corn Capital of Louisiana." Nippy Blair is a well-known regional artist and the building superintendent of Emmanuel Baptist Church in downtown Alexandria.
In 1944, Blair, though he had two small children, enlisted in the United States Navy and served in the Pacific Theatre for the remainder of World War II.
Read more about this topic: Cecil R. Blair
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