Paulette Bedsole Blankenship

Paulette Irene Bedsole Blankenship, born on January 26, 1943, in Fort McPherson, Georgia, died on May 30, 2025. Her parents were Marie Sicard Bedsole and Ned Bedsole. She grew up in Birmingham, Alabama where her family was active in the coal mining industry after her grandfather, Paul Sicard, immigrated from France.

Paulette graduated from Shades Valley High School and then attended Auburn University where she married her husband, Gaston Lee Blankenship. They followed her husband’s career living in mostly Huntsville, Alabama and Jacksonville, Florida. Through the years Paulette was a homemaker who raised three successful daughters. Later in life, she helped open and manage Ole Mexican Restaurant in Jacksonville, Florida. She loved spending time there and speaking to the customers and forming relationships with them and the employees.

Paulette is preceded in death by her husband, Gaston Blankenship, her parents, Ned Bedsole and Marie Sicard Bedsole, and her brother Maurice Bedsole.

She is survived by her three daughters: Adrianne Ohrt (Jon) of Franklin, Tennessee, Michelle Patino (Gus) of Valrico, Florida, and Yvonne Sanchez (Mario) of Jacksonville, Florida, 7 grandchildren whom she adored and 2 great grandchildren, a cousin, Carol Ann Davis of Birmingham, Alabama, and a nephew, Jimmy Bedsole of Huntsville, Alabama.

The burial will be held in the family cemetery at 2 pm, Thursday, June 12, 2025 in Limestone County, Alabama with a reception following at the home of her brother-in-law Rev. Ray Blankenship.