Lillie (Billie) Edith Blake

Subhead

1924-2020

Image
  • Lillie (Billie) Edith Blake
Body

    Lillie (Billie) Edith Blake, the seventh of nine children born to Charles Sloan and Nellie (Payne) Blake was born in Springerton, Illinois, April 6, 1924, and moved to her heavenly home October 19, 2020.
    Graveside services for Billie are scheduled for 2 p.m. Wednesday, October 21, 2020, at Hobart Rose Cemetery in Hobart. CDC guidelines will be observed with masks and social distancing.
    Billie was adventuresome. After finishing school in Mount Vernon, Illinois, she moved and completed a business school in Indiana. After completing the school she worked for a newspaper in Peoria, Illinois.
    She moved to Muskegon, Michigan to live with her older sister and work for Seal Power during World War II. It was there she saw an ad to recruit workers for Boeing Aircraft in Renton, Washington, and Billie felt the call of adventure and rode a train to Seattle, securing a job and finding lodging.
    Billie always denied being a “Rosie the Riviter” and said her job was to be the last to crawl through the B-17 planes to do the final check of screws and bolts before they left the plant.
    This adventure led to her meeting a handsome U.S. Army Paratrooper, Woodrow J. Russey, at the nearby military base during a lunch hour by a tennis court, but he soon received orders and was shipped out. They corresponded and after the war, Billie met Woodrow in Duncan, and they married September 9, 1945.
    Billie and Woody had two children, Ellen Louise and Roland Dean. After many moves the family settled in Hobart. Billie enjoyed being a housewife, a mother, a Sunday School teacher, and singing in the church choir.
    After children were grown she had a 13-year career as a receptionist for an optometrist. She loved to travel, sew, and do ceramics, and fishing was a great passion of hers. She was a member and loved her church family at the First Baptist Church in Weatherford.
    Survivors include: her daughter, Ellen Russey Johnson, of Weatherford; her grandchildren, Kyle Pfenning (Rhonda), Oklahoma City, and Deann Russey Cline, of Fort Worth, Texas; daughter-in-law, Carolyn Wilson, of Denton, Texas; great grandchildren, Nicolas Russey Pfenning and Monica, of Hobart, Shae Pfenning, of Weatherford, and Catherine and Trinity Cline, of Fort Worth
    She would have loved getting to know her great great grandson, Samuel Lee Pfenning.
    Billie was preceded in death by her husband, parents, three sisters, five brothers, her son, Ronnie, son-in-law, Richard Johnson and grand daughter, Stella Pfenning.
    Online condolences for Billie can be made by visiting www.peoplescooperativefuneralhome.com.
    In lieu of flowers, the family requests memorial donations to the Baptist Homes for Children, or the Weatherford Food & Resource Center.