Fannin County TXGenWeb
First Automobile at age 91

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from Ruth Walsh
More on Julia Blantons Memories

(a large photo of Mr. and Mrs. B.F. Blanton accompanied the article) –

 Special to The Democrat - WHITEWRIGHT - In the first automobile they ever owned purchased after his ninety-first birthday last Nov. 11, Mr.
 and Mrs. B. F. Blanton of Whitewright take daily drives into the country and say the trips have been good for their health. // Mr. Blanton does
 not drive himself, but his daughter drives the couple. // Mr. and Mrs. Blanton celebrated their sixty-ninth wedding anniversary last October 12. Like Mr. and Mrs. John N. Carter of Whitewright, they are looking forward to the celebration of their seventieth anniversary.  Mr. and Mrs.
 Carter will celebrate the date next November.  // Mr. Blanton is a retired farmer and ginner, a "homesteader" in Texas who has owned more than
 500 acres of land.  He still has 150 acres surrounding his home place.  He was born Nov. 11, 1843, in North Carolina, the son of B.E. and Mary
 Blanton.  He was educated in a log schoolhouse with a dirt floor.  He is a Baptist, having professed "a hope" at the age of 13, but he did not
join the church until he was 15 years old.  He became a deacon in the church when a young man in North Carolina and has held this office many years. // Mr. Blanton's grandfather served as a private in the American Revolutionary army.  The son serves in the civil war on the confederate  side, but like General Lee, did not believe in secession.  Before going to war he had fallen in love with a girl named Julia Ann Blanton, the daughter of a neighbor, whom he happened to meet the day when he and his father, a school teacher and court clerk, stopped at the neighbor's farm.  // It was love at first sight, Mrs. Blanton relates, although the names were the same.  The young man took a job at $10 a month on a farm   near the home of Miss Blanton, in order to be near her.  Soon they were engaged.  Then the war broke in and she waited for him three years before they were married.  // Mr. and Mrs. Blanton came to Texas from North Carolina in 1871, settling near Ely in Fannin county in a log house on 22 acres of land.  They moved to Bethel, in Grayson county, in 1876 where they lived until moving to Whitewright in 1930 to reside in town.  They are retaining their homestead, however.  Mr. Blanton gave up active farm life only four years ago.  // Their children are:  Mrs. W.B. Teel of  Vernon, J.S. Blanton, Vernon; W.B. Blanton, deceased; J.F. Blanton, Lubbock; C.S. Blanton and J.A. Blanton, Whitewright; B.L. Blanton, deceased; Mrs. W.A. Badgett, Denison; Mrs. M.C. Sweatt, Fort Gibson, Okla, and W.A. Blanton, Oklahoma City, Okla.