Mrs. Hilda Elizabeth Blanton

Hilda Elizabeth VanLandingham Blanton, 90, was born March 9, 1924 and entered eternity Oct. 13, 2014. Born in Sunflower County, MS, she lived most of her life near Ackerman on a farm she and her husband, Herbert Alexander Blanton, shared with their children. Hilda was a servant to her family, neighbors and strangers and was usually found elbow-deep in loving labor. She prepared many a feast that would feed a small nation. A skilled seamstress, Hilda worked several years in “the shirt factory.” At home she sewed so much for family and the public that her retirement was rumored to have put three fabric stores and a cotton mill out of business. One story recalled when Hilda spotted crows destroying her just-planted garden. Alone but peeved into action, she grabbed a rifle for the first time in her life and took aim – with the gunstock tucked under her tiny shoulder. When Hilda pulled the trigger, that .30-06 boomed backward, catching her eyebrow with its telescope. A few stitches and an icepack later, family members suggested the crows surely died, if only from laughing. Though equipped with humor, Hilda was also faithful in sorrows. She endured the loss of one infant and the sudden deaths of two adult sons. She knew grief intimately but refused to make even a nodding acquaintance with despair. Hilda was preceded in death by her husband, Herbert; sons Alexander, Milton and Bert; her parents, Mattie Belle Ingram and Milton Edward VanLandingham; sisters Louise McKinley, Helen VanLandingham, Wynell Banks and Carolyn Aldridge; and brother Milton Edward (EJ) VanLandingham Jr. She is survived by her children Leonard (Vera), Lillian Dart (Jim), Allen, and Berry (Teresa); brother Larry VanLandingham; and sisters Alice Holland, Dorothy Leahy, Cornelia Davis and Shirley Davis. She is also survived by 17 grandchildren: Len and John Blanton and Susan Hedgepeth; Gene and Beverly Blanton, Shelley Santos and Natalie Vann; Stephanie Moline, Jennifer Dute’, John and Jeffrey Perry, Wendie Baggett and Joshua Perry; Brian Blanton, Brad Bell, Alexandria and Thomas Blanton; and 31 great-grandchildren .Visitation will be held Friday from 5 to 8 p.m. at Chancellor Funeral Home in Florence. A second visitation will be at Enon Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Ackerman at 2 p.m. Saturday, with the funeral at 3 p.m., followed by burial in the church cemetery.