Blanche McGee

Well done, faithful servant!
Blanche Anna McGee was born Blanche Anna Connelly in the depth of winter in Grano, North
Dakota in 1930, or perhaps 1927. We will never exactly know. She was quite cagey about her
age, until last year. I’m 85….now I’m 90! She was born at home and her birth was recorded in
Minot, in the spring. Blanche grew up on a farm. She went to school in a one room schoolhouse where the teacher
gathered her on her knee to read to her. She walked miles to school in the snow...every day.
Blanche was a wonderful, loving spirit. She grew up during the depression and the Great War.
Her family moved to Portland, Oregon somewhere between 1943 and 1946. She came of age in
Portland at the end of the war, with all the excitement, glamour, and emerging prosperity that
was present in the thriving small cities of the west.
Blanche graduated from Lincoln High School, and her very first job in Portland was with Fred
Meyer. I’m not exactly sure where her love of cashmere sweaters emerged, but she bought her
very first one, (it was cherry red) when she got her first paycheck. Her love of cashmere never
faded, and she gifted not only her family with that wealth, but she also kept a whole community
warm with an abundance of soft, warm wool.
Blanche was a beauty, a classic beauty in those days, and it was not lost on those who courted
her. But her heart went fully and completely to Robert C. McGee. An airman turned osteopath
with a thriving practice, Blanche committed fully to their life together on February 8, 1964.
Blanche and Robert worked together to continue to build his medical practice.
Robert and Blanche were long time members of the Shriners and the Mac Club, and were
singers in the Mellow Macs. They spent their summers boating on the river. They had a lot of
fun, they danced, they loved. They cheered their grandchildren on. They had a generous home.
Blanche said goodbye to her beloved Robert in June 1996, after a long battle with cancer.
It was a devastating loss.
Encouraged by her daughter, Linda, Blanche eventually went on to get her real estate license
and started a second career. She lived for several years with her sister, Lula Bell Lee. They
were a delightful pair, ever generous and quirky as all get out.
I was blessed to enter this family at this time. We shared many afternoons in the lingering light
of our backyard.
Blanche Anna McGee
Blanche is deeply missed and profoundly mourned by all of us.
Blanche is survived by her daughter, Linda Schlechter; brother, Richard Leibham;
granddaughter, Marney A. Hoffman and her family: spouse Lane Hoffman and beloved
greatgrandson
Cash Hoffman; grandson, Joseph C. Schlechter and his spouse Meg
McHutchison. Blanche was preceded by sisters Kay Bryant, and Lulabell Lee, and her beloved
husband Robert C. McGee.