BLACKBURN, FRANCES JANE SPRALDING

Frances Jane was born in Mullen, Nebras-ka, on Dec. 1, 1918, of Raymond and Cherry Edna Spradling, just two days shy of the birthday of her grandfather Edmun Enoch Catron, at the time of her grandparents, Ed and Jennie Catron. Her sister is Harriet Elizabeth Keough.

Her parents lived at Hecla, where her father was agent on the CB&Q railroad. There was no way to get fresh milk, so about every other day or so her grandmother would pack a suitcase with milk and cream and put it on the train in Mullen, destination Hecla and the new baby. They lived in the apart-ment over the depot. Night and day the trains rumbled by, shaking the whole house, and leaving a trail of soot and smoke.

After her father bid in the agent's job in Seneca they moved there and when she was four years old she started to school, graduat-ing from Seneca High School in 1935. She attended Nebraska State Teachers College at Chadron for the better part of two years until she was taken ill by Scarlet Fever and quarantined at the school's dormitory. She didn't return to college, preferring to work, at first in Chadron for a shopper's guide, then the Nebr. State office of Unemployment Compensation. In 1939 she joined her moth-er, sister and grandmother in Oakland, California, where she enrolled in business school. She worked for various companies, including Oakland Title Insurance Guaranty Company, Clorox and Marchant Calculators.

In 1941 she and Lester Charles Perkins were married, after which she started work at the Oakland Navy Supply Depot in Oakland, California, and was there until 1945. In 1946 they were divorced and she started work with Arabian American Oil Company in San Francisco as Secretary to the Internal Auditor, and in 1949 went to Saudi Arabia to live and work for twelve years. One of her jobs was Secretary in the Saudi Arab Government Services of Govern-ment Relations of the Arabian American Oil Company. This was the department that dealt directly with procurement matters for the Saudi royal families. Another was Secre-tary to the head of the Arab Industrial Development Department. This department was responsible for directing local people in developing their country – electric plants, laundries, farms, food production, construc-tion of roads, etc.

It was in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia that she met Harry Down Blackburn. They were married in Kusnacht, Switzerland, on Octo-ber 22, 1957. They adopted a boy Ingolf Manfred when he was 8 years old.

In 1961 Harry retired and the family returned to the United States to settle in Santa Rosa, California. They have three grandsons, Eric, Elliot, and Isaac.