Obituary

Elizabeth Munger Blanchard Another member of the Greatest Generation has left us. Elizabeth Munger Blanchard died at her home in Santa Paula on Tuesday, September 29, 2009. She was 92 years old.Elizabeth was born March 18, 1917 to John Pinkerton Munger and Ella Wileman Munger in Bardsdale, California. She lived there with her parents and older brother, John Roger Munger, until she was 11, when the family left the Bardsdale ranch to move into Santa Paula.Like all of her generation, Elizabeth was shaped by the great events of her time - the Great Depression and World War II. But she was also shaped by events closer to home such as the 1928 collapse of the St. Francis Dam, which flooded the Santa Clara Valley and killed over 400 people.Beautiful, vivacious and brilliant, Elizabeth excelled in all she endeavored. At Santa Paula High School, a member of the Class of ‘33, she was vice president of the student body and editor of both the school newspaper, “The Cardinal” and the yearbook, ”El Solano”. While with the yearbook she worked with Horace Bristol, a struggling photographer who would later find fame documenting dust bowl émigrés and as a photographer for Life Magazine capturing some of the most memorable images of World War II.After graduation, Elizabeth studied at Holmby College in Los Angeles for two years and then returned to Santa Paula. She took a position with Security Pacific Bank for, as she put it, the “queenly” sum of $75 a month. By the time she left that monthly pay had been raised to $90.In 1937, Elizabeth married Eliot McClelland Blanchard, grandson of Santa Paula’s Founder, Nathan Weston Blanchard. After marriage the pair attended Stanford University, Eliot to complete his law degree and Elizabeth to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree with a triple major – journalism, economics and history.The pair began their married life in Beverly Hills, where Eliot began a law career that was soon interrupted by the outbreak of World War II. He joined the Navy and served in the Pacific.In 1946 Eliot and Elizabeth returned to Santa Paula, where Eliot managed the agricultural lands of the Samuel Edwards Associates (now part of the Limoneira Company). The couple had three children, Jim, John and Betsy, and Elizabeth focused on raising her children and becoming involved in their activities including teaching Sunday School at the First United Methodist Church, being a Cub Scout den mother and leading a troop of Blue Birds.She was to serve 17 years on both the elementary and high school boards of education in Santa Paula. She served on the Juvenile Justice Commission of Ventura County for 22 years. She was active with the Santa Paula Assistance Association, the Assistance League of Ventura County and its Las Patronas Auxiliary, which she chaired. She was president of the Board of Directors of the Museum of Ventura County and served as a museum docent for many years. She was also a regular docent at Santa Paula’s Union Oil Museum. She was for many years the only woman on the Museum of Ventura County’s Farm Implement Committee.