Our Dad, Albert Joseph Blanchard, 78, of Ragley, Louisiana, passed away in his home on March 30, 2020, in the loving arms of his two youngest sons. He was born to parents Joseph Seuzeneau Blanchard and Mary Sbisa Blanchard on November 8, 1941, in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.
Ironically and affectionately known as “Big Al,” he was an avid hunter and fisherman, enjoyed woodworking and spending time with family and friends, and is remembered fondly for his sharp wit, endearing sense of humor, love of the outdoors and passion for flying. When he was doing well financially, he shared with everyone. When he wasn’t, he shared even more. If you knew our Dad, you liked him. Everyone did. At weddings, he was the guy that everyone on the opposite side of the aisle met and remembered. He was the best conversationalist any of us has ever met. He opened up his home to anyone and everyone, and no one ever left hungry. It was one of the many ways he showed his love.
We didn’t know him when he was a child, but are blessed with volumes of stories that he shared with us in the humorist spirit of a Mark Twain novel, where he was mostly outside and often in trouble with his Catholic school nuns for the kind of things kids don’t do anymore, such as sneaking snakes and flying squirrels into the classroom in his backpack. His early adult years were spent in the United States Navy, on the USS Bonhomme Richard, and in the United States Merchant Marines, where he traveled the world and further satiated his appetite for adventure.
After leaving the Merchant Marines, he fittingly settled in Sportsman’s Paradise, where he graduated from the University of Southwestern Louisiana, raised a family, started a business that rode the 1980s oil boom and bust in grand style in both directions, and continued to travel the world as a private pilot while staying firmly planted in the area that he loved. He also had brief sojourns in Houston, Texas and Miami, Florida, where he flew for Eastern Airlines and realized his dream of becoming a commercial airline pilot. We’ll never forget the way he looked in that uniform.
His favorite poem was John Gillespie Magee’s “High Flight,” which perfectly captures the spirit with which he lived his life.
High Flight
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds,—and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air. . . .
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark nor ever eagle flew—
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
Our Dad was preceded in death by his parents, Joseph Seuzeneau Blanchard and Mary Sbisa Blanchard, and sisters, JoAnne Burns and Suzanne Faust, and is survived by his daughter, Amy Lauren Blanchard and Fiancé, Butch Landry ; three sons, Albert Joseph Blanchard, Jr., André Sexton Blanchard, Alexander Crouch Blanchard and wife Dorothy Roberts; five sisters, Marianne Cole, Dianne Grace, Sister Julianne Blanchard, D.C., Anne Morvant, Patricia Anne Shuler; brother, Joseph S. Blanchard, Jr.; and three grandchildren, Zane Alexander Blanchard, Colston Jacques Blanchard and Carlyn Jo McComb.
Dad, we love and miss you dearly. You lived a full life, but this came way too soon. There is simply no way to express all of the things we wish we could say and do – one more call, one more visit, one more hug. The list is endless. We will never see an airplane without thinking of you and are looking forward to the next round of stories when we meet again.
Visitation will be from 5:00pm until 8:00pm on Thursday, April 2, 2020, at Hixson Funeral Home in Lake Charles, Louisiana and will resume on Friday, April 3, 2020, from 11:00am until 12:30pm. The family will host a private graveside service at Highland Memorial Gardens and is planning a celebration of life for his many friends and family who cannot be with him now due to travel restrictions. Words of comfort may be shared with the family at www.hixsonfuneralhomes.com.
