Ethel Blackwelder
From the May 12, 2006 issue of the Terrell County News-Leader, page 2:A memorial service will be at 10 a.m. today, May 12, 2006, at First United Methodist Church in Sanderson for Ethel Idalia Nobles Blackwelder, a long-time Sanderson resident who died in a Fort Stockton nursing home last week at the age of 99. Burial will be at Cedar Grove Cemetery.
Ethel was born January 17, 1907, the second of six children, to Hiram Griffin Nobles and Katherine Delula Wiggins Nobles in Killeen. She married James Ross Blackwelder on January 15, 1922, in Oglesby and they made their home in Albany until moving to Sanderson in 1926.
Ethel was a homemaker and waitress and helped her husband in his shoe shop until he passed away in 1948. Ethel loved attending church and she received a pin for 50 plus years of faithful attendance from the First United Methodist Church of Sanderson.
She loved Sanderson and its people especially, "the little ones," as she called them. She was known as Granny Blackwelder to most of the "baby boomers." When she became a resident of the Fort Stockton Nursing Home, she always enjoyed visitors from Sanderson.
Ethel was preceded in death by her husband, five siblings and her four children, James L. Blackwelder, Weldon "Scooter" Blackwelder, Marilyn Sechrest and Ora Mae Boyd.
Surviving her are daughters-in-law Gloria Blackwelder of Fort Stockton and Janie Blackwelder of San Angelo; six grandchildren, nine great grandchildren and eight great great grandchildren.
The family requests that memorials or donations be made to the Terrell County Public Library in lieu of flowers.