We have an amazing story to share of a life lived well full and complete. Born in November 20th of 1939 to Audre George Blair (2012) and Evelyn Mary Gates Blair in the rural country of Northeast Ohio in the idyllic town of Newbury, home to simple pleasures and core values bred only by life on a farm, Sally Blair was the oldest daughter of six children. Together George, Gerry (2013), Kaye (Ware), Jeanne (Pugh), and Bob shared a storybook life in a time that is reserved only for nostalgia now. Graduating from Newbury High School with lifelong friends in 1957, Sally later graduated from Kent State in the class of 1961.

In that time she met Carl, who after his persistence, she married for forty years before his passing in 2002. In that life they brought into this world one daughter and four sons. To Richard, Carla (Charbonneau), Eric, and later in life surprise twins Mark and Matthew, they taught the secrets of bedrock values of family first and nothing is more important than a sit down dinner together - every night. Carl’s career with the ATF took them from Charleston to a tour of Florida with stops in Marianna, Jacksonville, and Coral Springs before settling on a whim in Jonesborough, TN in 1987.

In a world marked by outward expectations, Sally lived a life of contrast to the superfluous. Truly, if you stripped away from her all that was unimportant, what is left would be remarkably the same as what came before. She taught the soundness and simplicity of self-reliance. Where TV shows document exhausting wedding dress shopping, she carefully and beautifully sewed a Sally Wilhjelm original for her daughter’s wedding dress, an outward expression of the sweetness and diligence of who she was inside. Her lifelong passions of sewing and cooking never left her.

An unapologetic fan of college football and a large family, Sally never met a stranger and loved nothing more than cooking for a large table full of small mouths. Conscious in her diet, her sweet tooth claimed the best of her when it came to desserts for her grandchildren. Her only wish from her parent’s estate was the extra-long farm table so as to sit with her entire family around it one more time.

Without question, her greatest pride and joy are her children, their spouses Derek Charbonneau and Julie, Karen, and Kim Wilhjelm, and the light of her life her 13 grandchildren (Melanie, Katie, and Emily Charbonneau; Hannah, Erin, Madison, Olivia, Andrew, Jack, Karly, Brock, Bryson, and Brooks Wilhjelm. She leaves behind many friendships strong and deep, her mother and siblings and spouses, numerous nieces and nephews, her family, untold secrets of pies and pecan rolls, a void never to be filled, a good name, and an admirable story of a life well lived.

She passed quietly on September 28, 2015 at JCMC. Memorial services will be conducted 7:00 pm Friday, October 2, 2015 at the Dillow-Taylor Funeral Home with Rev. Larry Nees officiating. The family will receive friends from 5:00-7:00 pm Friday prior to the service. In lieu of flowers memorial donations may be made to either The Great Geauga County Fair Foundation - PO Box 402, Burton, OH 44021 or Pancreatic Cancer Action Network (PanCan) - 1500 Rosecrans Ave, Ste 200, Manhattan Beach, CA 90266 or donate online at http://pancan.org/donate-now/ . Please indicate your donation is in memory of Sally Wilhjelm.