#1 Services for Melissa Blevins Were on Monday

Funeral services were held Monday afternoon, December 1st at 2 p.m. at the Bendorf Funeral Home for Miss Melissa Helen Blevins who resided at 2166 Front Street in Blair.

She was born January 26, 1886 at Arlington and was 83 years of age.

Miss Blevins and two brothers lived on a farm near Kennard until they moved to Blair in 1946. Her brother Wm. K. Blevins died in 1952 and Luther Blevins died in 1960. Lissa died at the Blair Community Memorial Hospital.

Survivors are a sister, Mrs. Daisy Wilkinson of North Platte, three nephews and one niece.

The Rev. Richard Atherton officiated at the funeral and burial was in the Kennard Cemetery.

Pallbearers were James Thone, Howard Widener, Neal Andreasen, Jack Andreasen, Vernon Mathiesen and Paul Petersen.

The Enterprise 8 April 1971

(Photo)

#2 Melissa Blevins Bequests Aid Hospitals, Churches, Others

The Blair Community Memorial Hospital recently was the recipient of a very generous bequest from the late Miss Melissa (Lissie) Blevins. The bequest, in three sections, totaled over $60,000.

The largest of these was a direct bequest of $42,902 in cash. In addition Miss Blevins left to the hospital the contract for a farm which she sold, with an unpaid balance of $11,000, and a house on Front Street in Blair which sold for $6,500. In all the hospital realizes $60,402 from the Blevins estate. The bequests were announced at the annual meeting of the hospital.

In addition to the bequest left to the hospital, Miss Blevins also gave Crowell Home $17,621; the Methodist Church at Kennard and the Methodist Church at Blair each $2,073.

A 160 acre farm made up other bequests of a niece and nephew, a cousin, and to the three sons of Dr. James Thone, with whom Miss Blevins had close family ties.

Melissa Blevins was born at Arlington in 1886 and died in Blair in 1969. She lived on a farm near Kennard with her two brothers until 1946, when all three moved to their house at 2166 Front Street in Blair. Her two brothers preceded her in death, and Miss Blevins lived at her home, with a housekeeper, until the last few months of her life which were spent in Blair Memorial Hospital.

Miss Blevins had made a substantial contribution to the hospital at a time when the building fund drive was made, and she expressed a high regard to the care which she had received there during her last months of her life. Her mind was very alert up until shortly before her death and her various bequests were carefully thought out and specific.

Note: She is buried in Blk 2 Lot 39 Sp 1 in the Kennard Cemetery.

FindaGrave Memorial # 7670127

~~~ Obituary courtesy of the Washington County Genealogical Society. Newspaper clippings on file in the Blair Public Library in Blair, Nebraska.