Good-bye and God bless, Cliff Blanchard

Cliff Blanchard, right, presents a certificate of appreciation to Matthew S. Huber, Brazil Concert Band, from the Sons of the American Revolution. Photo: Courtesy John Martin Chapter, Sons of the American Revolution. .

 A friend died with COVID-19 recently. I’m not sure COVID-19 was the only cause of death but it was certainly a contributing factor. 

I came to know many people as the editor of a small town newspaper, many remain friends, but Cliff Blanchard will always stand out because of our shared background in newspapers and what he did for me in the last days of his life. 

I met Cliff many years ago when I was first editor of The Brazil Times starting in 2001. He stopped by the office one day to visit with his daughter, Robin, whose desk was near mine. 

He introduced himself to me as the former photographer for The Times. 

He pointed out the room with a large sink that had been turned into our computer server area and told me about the many rolls of film he had developed in that darkroom. 

Our paths crossed from time to time over the years. 

When I returned to the newspaper six years ago, Cliff stopped by again, though his daughter had moved on to another job. 

Cliff has been a man of many interests. He was active in the county’s genealogical society and was president of the local Sons of the American Revolution chapter. 

He regularly sent in photos from both of those organizations and he took other photos and submitted them as well. 

One photo stands out in my memory from a recent winter. A truck had flipped on U.S. 40 and was laying on its side. Cliff took a photo of it while a heavy snow was falling. It was one of those pictures that made me say, “Wow” and we ran it on the front page. 

Other people were good about sending in articles and photos from their local organizations but what Cliff did near the end of his life will always stay with me. 

My wife and I tested positive for COVID in October and we had it bad. 

We had friends and neighbors who helped out by picking up food Linda ordered at Kroger and bringing us other food as well. One lady in First Baptist in Brazil was especially helpful. 

But Cliff, my old friend, called at least three times to offer help and see how we were doing. 

The last time I spoke with him was one morning after I lost my job with the paper. 

“Frank, I’m in Union (hospital). They brought me here last night. I think I will be here quite a while,” Cliff said. “I only have 17% of my phone battery left so I will have to cut this short.”

I told him how much I had appreciated his calls and expressions of concern and to please have his family let me know if there was anything I could do for him or the sons who lived with him. Due to the pandemic I could not visit him. 

Later, I took time from my job search to call his daughter, Robin, at work, because I didn’t have a cell or home phone for her. 

“I talk to the nurses each day and we think dad only has a couple days to live,” Robin said. 

Sure enough, not long after that conversation, I read Cliff’s obituary on the funeral home’s website. 

I am thankful for the many people of First Baptist Church in Brazil and many others who reached out to us and prayed and did for us what we could not do for ourselves. Their expressions of concern were truly moving. 

I think that is the great lesson from this terrible year I will always remember: It is so important to reach out to those about us because we never know when we will lose them. 

We can’t visit face to face but we can find other ways to communicate our concern to one another.