Mary Ann Blair

Mary Ann Blair of Charlotte passed away after a brief illness on August 31, 2016. She was born on September 27, 1930 in Atlanta Georgia. The daughter of Edith and Gene Dahlbender, she was raised in Atlanta, graduated from Christ the King High School and attended Wesleyan College. She married young to John Burkhardt and was tragically widowed with a baby daughter, Anne, when she was only twenty-two. She would go on to marry Carl Blair and raise five children, living several places throughout the South, including Atlanta, Columbia, and Charlotte and eventually settling in Severna Park, Maryland. After twenty years in Maryland, she and Carl returned to the city they loved, Charlotte, where she would spend the next twenty-five years doing things she loved most, caring for her family, enjoying the company of good friends, playing bridge and feeding all the wildlife that wandered into her backyard. Mary Ann loved her pets, birds, and flowers. Crossword puzzles and cooking were her favorite hobbies, when not playing bridge. She also loved music, especially Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra.

She was predeceased by her husband Carl and two children, Anne and Carl, III, and her only brother Gene Dahlbender, Jr. She is survived by three children; Corinne, Christopher, and Edith Marie, fourteen grandchildren, and one great granddaughter.

A memorial service will be held on Saturday, September 17, 2016 at 1 pm at McEwen Pineville Chapel. In lieu of flowers, she would have preferred a donation to Loaves & Fishes or The Humane Society.