Emma Bledsoe

Emma Lucille Bledsoe, 83, of Hammett, died Sunday, Dec. 14, 2008, at a local care center in Mountain Home.

Services will be on Tuesday, Dec. 23, at Rost Funeral Home, McMurtrey Chapel in Mountain Home. Burial followed at Glenn Rest Cemetery in Glenns Ferry.

Lucille was born on Dec. 11, 1925, in Grove Springs, Mo., to Hosea and Anna (Weber) Bohannon. She was the oldest of four children and consequently helped care for the other three. As a farm girl she learned at an early age how to cook, sew, grow a garden, can fruits and vegetables, and tend livestock. Lucille attended grade school near Grove Springs and high school in Lebanon, Mo. While in high school she learned to play guitar. Music became a lifelong passion.

Lucille moved with her family to Idaho in early 1944. Her father worked briefly as a carpenter during the construction of Anderson Ranch Dam while Lucille and her sister Lillian worked in the kitchen.

The family moved to Marsing in the summer of 1944 where she met Leonard Bledsoe, who was also from Missouri, and who also played the guitar.

Lucille and Leonard were married at the Riverside Friends Church on Dec. 9, 1944.

In 1948, they purchased a farm near Marsing which became the family home for the next 25 years. During that time at the Marsing farm they raised their two children, Donna and Bob. In 1973 Lucille and Leonard moved to the Hammett farm where they remained for the next 35 years.

Lucille was actively engaged in farm life, often helping to feed the cattle, always growing a large garden, helping with the potato harvest and preparing large family meals. "Her homemade biscuits and pies were always a hit at family gatherings," her family said.

Lucille enjoyed family hunting and fishing trips, spring picnics to the Owyhee Mountains or to Bennett Mountain when the wildflowers were in bloom, and accompanying Leonard on the guitar at the end of the day or when family came to visit.

Lucille is survived by: her daughter, Donna, and her husband, Bob Taggart, of Portola Valley, Calif.; her son, Bob, and his wife, Wakelee Bledsoe, of Hammett; four grandchildren; two sisters, Lillian (Barry) Clark of Peoria, Ariz., and Ruth Hunter of Homedale, Idaho; and one brother, Eugene (Thelma) Bohannon of Sedro Wooley, Wash.

Lucille was preceded in death by her husband, Leonard.