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Born: January 5, 1881
Wartrace, TNDied: December 21, 1969
Safety Harbor, FLMarried: Frederick J. Howard
November 1, 1909 - Birmingham, AL
Married: Sidney Herbert Lynn
September 2, 1932 — Tampa, FLChildren:
Frederick, Victor, Sara MargueriteSiblings:
Benjamin F. Davis, II
Eudora (Dora) Davis AllenParents: Margaret Jennings and Benjamin Davis
Blanche, the youngest of three children, was less than a year old when her father died. She grew up in Wartrace, Tennessee, and attended the Brandon Training School there. As a young woman she lived in Birmingham, AL, and Chattanooga, TN , where she met my grandfather, who was boarding with her sister and brother-in-law. Although married in Birmingham, AL, as newlyweds they lived in Chattanooga, near her sister Dora (Dodie). My grandfather built their home, at 307 Summer St., in North Chattanooga.
Additional business-related moves took them to High Point, North Carolina, then to Tampa, Florida, where my grandmother settled in as though born to the Sunshine State. She loved everything about Florida, from its beaches and climate to the tropical plants and citrus fruit, and never wanted to live anywhere else, even after my grandfather died.
When the Depression years started and my grandfather was forced to move to Atlanta to find work, Blanche remained behind in Tampa with their children. My mother told me that, for a few years, they moved twice each year. They could afford a larger, nicer rental during the summer but moved to smaller quarters during the winter months, when rates rose in anticipation of the “winter visitors” from the north. When Fred died (1930), she used most of his life insurance to purchase a permanent home for her family on Chapin Ave. in Tampa.
Her second husband, Herbert Lynn, was the grandfather we knew, as they married years before any of us were born. Herbert was something of a rarity as he was born and raised in Florida, so was never a transplant from the north. He worked until retirement as a machinist for the Seaboard Railroad. And, using those skills, he kept and maintained his original Model A Ford, eventually converting it to his fishing truck. Herbert taught all of his granchildren to fish in Tampa Bay and promised each grandson, in turn, his Model A Ford. He still had that car until shortly before he died, in 1974.
Blanchie was pure sunshine herself, not to mention irrepressible and funny. She made the best fried peach pies on the face of the earth, was a friend to everyone, an enthusiastic gardener, and enjoyed outings to horse and greyhound racetracks. She liked pretty clothes, keeping up with the latest styles, and adored her three children and five grandchildren.
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