Memorial Day

A watercolor painting of Ralph Blanton in 1942.

Traditionally, on this day, we remember the soldiers who have fought in our wars.

"The Blanton Family came to the New World in 1654 when Thomas Blanton was granted land in Caroline County, Virginia. There has been a member of the Blanton Family in every American war starting with the Revolution." -- http://houseofblanton.com/NewFiles/crest.html

I will remember the soldiers of our family. 

The first Blanton in our family line came to this country in 1675 and settled in Virginia; his name was Charles.  He married a Mary, who gave birth to a girlchild four months after arriving in this country.  I've always liked that sequence: conceived in the Old World, born in the New World.  Those Blantons were French Huegonots (Protestants) fleeing persecution by the Catholic King of France.  After arriving in America, most became Baptists.  Since Charles arrived with very little and struggled at first as all immigrants do, he volunteered to fight for the British against the French in the French and Indian War (1689–1763).  For his service he was awarded @2000 acres of land.*

The Sartains are another Huegonot family that came over about the same time.  The Blantons and Sartains intermarried.  During the American Revolutionary War, the Blantons and Sartains fought for the Revolution because they had no interest in being ruled by kings.  One Sartain married Captain William Turner, who fought with Lafayette and Washingtion at the Battle of Yorktown.

An Isaac Blanton fought in the War of 1812 and was awarded a tract of land for his service.

As Blantons prospered and procreated, they spread across the land.  Some went north and settled in Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana.  Others went south into the Carolinas and Georgia.  Still others moved west into Tennessee and Northern Alabama.  By the time of the Civil War, there were white and black Blantons, Northern and Southern Blantons.  I have researched the army rolls for this period and found the following:  the white Blantons from the Carolinas, Georgia and Virginia fought for the South; the ones from Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky fought for the North; all the black Blantons fought for the North;  the white Blantons from Tennessee and Northern Alabama, who had only recently moved there from Kentucky and Ohio, stayed out of the war and sold horses to both sides.  I am descended from the Northern Alabama Blantons.

Blantons fought in World War One, but I have not researched their service. However, here are three that I found on a list from Caroline County, Virginia:  Peter Blanton, Edward Bailey Blanton, Oscar Wright Blanton

This brings me to my father, Ralph Richardson Blanton.  He was born in 1911.  He graduated from high school (the first in his family to do so) in 1931**, so he was a member of "The Greatest Generation."  Since the Great Depression hit soon after graduation and he couldn't find a decent job, he joined the Marines.  He spent his six** years of service in the Far East: China and the Phillipines.  This opened his mind to a wider world than he had known before.  He returned to the states and worked as a coal miner, but since he could read and write, his fellow miners elected him president of their union, so he spent little time in the mines.  When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, he joined the Army.  Because of his Marine service, the Army immediately made him a drill sergeant to train new recruits.  In 1945, he trained as a radio operator on B-29s, but the war ended before he had to fly any missions. (By the way, our mother Lois Rachel had worked near Atlanta in a plant building B-24 Liberator bombers.)  After the war, he continued his service with the USAF and worked with the Strategic Air Command.  During the Korean War, he was stationed in Japan.  Thus my father spent 26** years in the military in three different military branches and two wars.  He is buried in Arlington National Cemetary and his gravesite has a wonderful view of the Washingtion, Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials.

By the way, he was a good father and husband, too.

I toured the battleship USS Alabama in Mobile, Alabama.  In the list of sailors who served aboard it during WW2 was a Douglas Blanton.

I haven't researched thoroughly all the wars the United States has fought, but I have a feeling that a Blanton has served in all of them.

Here are some items that I have discovered.

1. There was a regimental surgeon named Dr. Blanton who served in the Mexican War, 1847.
2. Blanton, Benjamin F.--served in the Spanish-American War (1898).
3. Lance Cpl. Jeffery Steven Blanton was killed in Iraq on Dec. 12, 2004.
4. A Staff Sgt. Isaac Blanton is serving in Afghanistan.
5. Homer "Bud" Blanton, Jr. passed away on Saturday, May 1, 2010. Mr. Blanton was born on February 1, 1945 in Huntington, West Virginia. Bud served in the Navy during Vietnam, earning several medals.
6. Retired U.S. Air Force and Vietnam veteran, Raymond Blanton Sr. passed away recently.

I salute all the fighting Blantons, who have helped make this country what it is.

*There is reasonable evidence to suggest the Blantons lived in the area of Lyon, France during the 1400's, and as late as the 1560's. There is one suggestion that the family was there in the 1200's. To study the region and our DNA, you can only speculate beyond this. The DNA rib is common with the Basque. In addition the Rhone River that leads from Lyon to the Mediterranean Sea was well traveled by the Romans and the Greeks from early times. Therefore one would suspect an ethnicity of Basque, Roman and Greek influence throughout this region. There is a village of Blantin near Lyon. The name "Blanton" and "Blandin" most likely is a result of a place name of Blancs, which name came into being from French and Catalan. . . . The Blantons are French Huguenots as supposed upon good authority in Marshall Wingfield's "History of Caroline County, Virginia". The Blantons fled to England before the year 1600. . . . The spelling "Blanton" has one variation for the name "Blanding".  William Blanding, uncle to Thomas Blanton, immigrated to Boston in 1639. He was known as William Blantine or Blanton in his early years in England. -- http://blantonfamilyhistorylocal.com/


**These items were amended after my sister Debra sent me an email informing me of my errors.