Bobby Lee Blevins

On the day she gave birth to her son, Walter Robert, Pearl Blevins knew that he was something special. [If you’re thinking that this is the obituary for Bobby (Bob) Lee Blevins, please keep reading. We’ll get there soon.] Pearl knew that her darling baby boy was special because he came into the world on leap year’s day—February 29, 1932. Pearl and her husband, Minter, took their child home to the Ogburn Station neighborhood of Winston-Salem where he was loved and celebrated by his parents and extended family. He was also occasionally terrorized by his older brothers, Clyde and M.L., Jr. His parents and brothers called little Walter Robert by the name of “Bobby” though his mother usually spelled it, “Bobbie.”

Bobby and his family spent the first six years of his life in Winston-Salem before moving to the Walnut Grove community in Wilkes County so his parents could help care for Pearl’s aging parents. Bobby’s father, Minter, was the pastor at Walnut Grove Baptist Church, a calling that required Minter to also pick up other employment as he was able. He served as the postman for the community and even served as Bobby’s fifth grade teacher at Walnut Grove School.

Bobby was scheduled to move on to Mountain View School beginning in eighth grade. One late summer Sunday afternoon in 1946 just before Bobby started that first year at Mountain View, he accompanied his father to a revival meeting at Oak Ridge Baptist Church. As they walked down Rock Creek Road in Hays, NC enroute to the church, Bobby and his father passed the home of Roy Key. Roy’s daughter, Polly Ann, was sitting on the front porch and took note of them passing by. She knew Reverend Blevins and his older son, M.L, Jr. because M.L. had already moved up to Mountain View School. Through M.L., she also knew that his younger brother, Bobby, would be joining her class in just a few days. Upon spotting the two men walking together, Ann thought to herself, “That must be Bobby.” Bob Blevins recounted this story every chance he got over the past eighty-plus years, always adding that “Ann said to herself that day, ‘I’m gonna marry that boy.’” In each telling, Ann would simply purse her lips, smile, and nod as he broke into a wide grin.

Whether Bob’s particular recounting of their first meeting is historical fact or a tall tale, there is no dispute that Bob and Ann became fast friends. Bob knew few of the students at Mountain View when he started school but broke the ice with his infectious laugh and good-natured humor. Pretty soon he had formed deep friendships with his classmates. Bob and Ann were both active in church and school activities. The athletic prowess of the Mountain View girls’ teams surpassed that of the boys; in 1948 (Ann and Bob’s 10th grade year), the girls’ basketball team even made a big enough impression to be invited to the Northwest Basketball Tournament (forerunner to the Frank Spencer and Mary Garber Tournaments that are still held today) in Winston-Salem. The boys’ team never received an invitation, though Bob’s brother M.L. did manage to score a basket for the opposing team on one occasion.

Ann and Bobby started dating in 11th grade. Bobby dutifully courted his girlfriend on the front porch (during warmer months) or parlor (once the weather turned cold) of the Key home, under the watchful gaze of her father Roy and the nosey curiosity of Ann’s younger brother, Denver. In 12th grade, they were voted “Cutest Couple” by their peers but neither one of them assumed the romance would continue after high school. By the time of graduation, Bob knew he would be moving to Winston-Salem to take a job with Southern Bell and Ann knew that the fall would find her at Appalachian State Teachers College in Boone. In all honesty, they both assumed that Ann’s fancy might turn to another suitor, their classmate Glen Wiles, so they offered each other good, warm wishes on the night before Bob left for the Twin City.

But, for whatever reason, they stayed in touch, exchanging regular love letters. Anyone who knew Bob Blevins in his adulthood will likely have a difficult time recalling any letter they received from him; he simply didn’t send hand-written letters. But Ann received them beginning in the fall of 1950 as she moved to Boone and those letters kept coming over the course of her time at Appalachian. Clearly, Bob was hooked.

Within weeks after Bob started his new job at Southern Bell, the United States committed troops to support South Korea in their armed combat against North Korea. Bobby chose to enlist rather than wait to be drafted, opting for a position in the US Air Force instead of the Army. When he presented for his induction physical, Bob saw his official birth certificate for the first time. And there, on the official document, was an unexpected name, “Bobbie Lee” and not “Walter Robert.” Bob quizzed his mother, Pearl, who swore on all that was holy that she had instructed the nurse to write “Walter Robert” on the document; as proof, Pearl even produced an actual holy artifact: the family Bible. She noted that the name entered for her youngest son on the pages therein was indeed Walter Robert. Nonetheless, the legal document took precedent over Pearl’s handwriting in the Bible. At eighteen, Bob got used to a formal name change. That would be the first of many changes in the coming years.

At that induction, the physician conducting the exam on Bobby completed his eye exam and informed him, “Son, you’re almost legally blind in your left eye. You don’t qualify for the Air Force. I’m going to refer for induction into the Army.” Bob informed the physician that if he was headed into the Army he would simply wait until he was drafted because his brother M.L. was already serving in Korea and his mother was terrified that she would lose her two youngest children in ground combat during the conflict. The doctor remarked, “Well if that’s the case, I can certify you for a non-combat position in the Air Force but you won’t have anything to do with flying or servicing planes.” And so, Bobby was assigned to be a supply medic at the Amarillo Air Force Base in Texas, a post he held for his entire five-year stint in the Armed Forces. M.L., stationed with US troops in east Asia, would always close his letters home by asking his parents to check in on Bob as “he fights bravely in the Battle of Amarillo.”

Over the next three years, Bob and Ann stayed in touch through those love letters. Late in 1953, after the Korean conflict had ended, Bob wrote a letter to Ann that would change the course of their lives. He proposed. For the next 10 days, Bob did not receive a reply from his girl; but on the 11th, an envelope containing a postmark of “Boone, NC” with Bob’s name and address written in Ann’s neat, cursive script arrived. It took Bob the better part of a day to open it. And as his eyes frantically scanned the pages inside, Bob let out a yell upon spotting the sentence “Yes, I’ll marry you.” And then later in the letter, she asked Bob to call her when he read her reply. They missed each other that evening because Ann was studying in the library, but the next day Bob was able to connect with his fiancé. Ann asked Bob, “Why didn’t you call me and ask me to marry you that way? Why did you wait for me to send my answer through the mail?” Bob’s reply: “I was afraid you would say no and I couldn’t bear to actually hear that word come out of your mouth.”

On July 10, 1954, the two married at Mountain View Baptist Church with the Reverend Minter L. Blevins presiding. The happy couple spent one night in Asheville before heading back to Bob’s parents’ home in Hays (they had moved from Walnut Grove when Bob was in 11th grade). That house was quite small: five rooms in all. When Bob and Ann headed to bed, he shut the door to the room they were sleeping in to offer the newlyweds a little privacy. In due time, Pearl came around to quietly open the door. Bob quietly closed it again but his mom would not be thwarted. She informed the couple that a summer evening in North Carolina required cross ventilation through the house and this wasn’t possible when they closed their door. They could wait a few nights when they were in the privacy of their own home to get better acquainted, but tonight, that door needed to stay open.

Bob and Ann made the long drive from the North Carolina mountains to the prairie fields of northern Texas over those next few days and then moved into a tiny apartment off base. Ann was looking for a job as a schoolteacher and Bob had spent his meager savings on the security deposit and first month’s rent. For that first month, they lived on the small money Ann had saved, eating pinto beans and potatoes for lunch and dinner for days on end. Finally, in mid-August, just days before the start of the new school year and days after the money had run out, Ann was offered a job teaching seventh grade. They celebrated with some roasted chicken.

In 1955, Ann and Bob moved home to North Carolina, returning to Winston-Salem and settling into a post-war duplex just off of Ivy Avenue near the end of the runway of Smith-Reynolds Airport. Bob returned to Southern Bell and Ann took a position at Prince Ibraham School teaching seventh grade. They quickly set down roots in the city with Bob’s brother M.L. and Ann’s sisters Jewell and Betty living there as well. They joined a local church—New Hope Baptist—and became active members there. In 1958, they built a new home on Jordan Drive and in 1961, they welcomed their first child into the world. The Jordan Drive house may be where their daughter slept, but in fact, she quickly took up residence in her parents’ hearts. Their daughter Leigh Ann came into the world with a full head of jet-black hair, a site that made such an impression on everyone who met her that the two-year-old daughter of close family friends rolled her eyes dismissively upon first meeting this infant who was getting far too much attention and exclaimed, “Yuck! Green hair!”

In time, Ann took a new position as librarian at Oak Summit Elementary and became a fixture on the faculty, staying there until the school closed in the early 1980s. She then served as librarian at Rural Hall Elementary. Bob started as an installer at Southern Bell but quickly took a position as a line repair technician. In due time, he took a promotion to manage one of the switching offices, maintaining banks of analog electronic circuits in a low-slung building off of Old Vineyard Rd. They moved from Jordan Drive to a new home they built on Bethabara Road in 1963, less than a quarter of a mile from the palisade fort that surrounds the historic settlement. In 1967, they welcomed their son John home and Leigh Ann seemed happy to have a younger sibling to join her in her misadventures. Bob and Ann had fashioned the quintessential American dream: their own home with two kids and a dog named Lady. Now members at Becks Baptist Church, the family enjoyed a large, close-knit network of friends whom they met at church and through camping.

In fact, camping became a passion of the family, especially of Bob and Ann- but they didn’t think it would. One Sunday in 1969, M.L. contacted Bob to say that he had bought a new camper for him, his wife Peggy, and their two sons. Bob replied, “Whoa, boy was that a mistake. You couldn’t pay me to camp. I work too hard at my job to have to have to work that much harder setting up a campsite when I’m on vacation.” Before the end of that work week, Bob and Ann had bought their first camper, a 15-foot Serro Scotty. Bob and Ann had found their hobby and pretty quickly moved onto larger, more comfortable trailers before settling on the Airstream as their preferred RV. They joined with four other families from Becks Church to form the Piedmont Roadrunners Camping Club, a club that eventually grew to over thirty families. From March to November each year, at least one weekend out of the month was devoted to a camping trip across western and central North Carolina, along with a two-week camping vacation each summer. Usually, the summer trip found the family at North Myrtle Beach but on occasion, they opted to explore other parts of the country, even crossing over into Canada on a three-week Bicentennial vacation in the summer of 1976.

Bob took early retirement from Bell South on December 31,1987. Ann followed soon thereafter in early 1988. Freed from work demands and with their two children out of the house, Bob and Ann couldn’t be stopped. They lived retirement with joy and intention, visiting 49 states as they pulled their Airstream behind them (it’s hard to drive to Hawaii and Ann let anyone who cared to know that air travel was not something she enjoyed – although she had never flown). Summer would find the couple thousands of miles from home trekking across the United States in an Airstream caravan; in fact, Leigh Ann and John had to travel to the upper peninsula of Michigan to meet their parents for their 50th wedding anniversary in July 2004. Many camping trips included nightly campfires with marshmallows and homemade fried pies, massive pots of chicken stew, spirited games of Hand and Foot card games, and fierce rounds of Jarts (a lawn dart game that could never be manufactured today because of the very-real possibility of bodily injury that accompanied the game). Bob would join with one his buddies each morning not to go around to the others’ campers loudly proclaiming, “I’ve got a little red rooster and my how he can crow—cock-a-doodle-doo!” He endured good-natured ribbing from the men in the club for always splitting kitchen chores with his wife—if she cooked, he did the dishes. And he became known as the unofficial repairman of the club, figuring out ingenious solutions to broken awning couplings, stuck doors, or paint damage sustained when towing mirrors were installed on the car.

Bob and Ann quit towing the camper in 2010 and left it parked at the Saddle Ridge Campground just outside Sparta on the Blue Ridge Parkway. They enjoyed their time with camping buddies at Saddle Ridge until they finally sold the camper and gave up their hobby in 2021; they were both 89. For those fifty-plus years of camping, if Bob and Ann were camping on a Sunday, no matter where they were, they found their way to a church service to worship their Lord. They might opt for the service in the campground or they might drive to the nearest Baptist (always Baptist!) church they could find. But they showed up to worship when traveling and they faithfully supported their home congregation in Winston-Salem even when on the road. Faith was the center of Bob’s life, the grounding point for everything he did and the lens through which he worked to discern how to love his God, his wife, his children, his neighbors, and any stranger he encountered. Bob was unabashed in his love of God, telling anyone who would listen about the difference God’s grace made in his life. He always wanted people to know his Jesus.

Still, he wasn’t judgmental or petty and he did not turn away others whose own experiences of faith differed from his own. He was gregarious and good natured, either on the verge of laughter or in the midst of it. That is, unless he was crying. Bob could cry at the drop of a hat—at a sermon or a postcard, a song or story, a heart that was broken or one overflowing with joy. Bob cried at sappy movies or sentimental television episodes. He even cried at Publix commercials. He had a heart full of love. His family believes that both laughter and tears were one form of prayer for Bob. In fact, he came close to praying as the Apostle Paul exhorted Christians to do: without ceasing. When Bob prayed, his voice changed, softening to reflect a holy awe that he was standing before the Maker of the Universe who loved him enough to listen to his prayer. John and Leigh Ann recount their childhood memory of lying in bed each night and hearing their parents in their own bedroom praying a long, sustained, specific prayer of adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication. One night Bob would pray; the next night, Ann.

Bob approached such prayers with humbleness and a fear that he was undeserving of God’s love. He lost sleep worrying about arguments or cross words with his children and he prayed long and hard for discernment on how to handle conflict and differences. Bob was raised by a minister, a man whom Bob always said “would have been one of the 12 who followed Jesus if he’d been alive back then.” He learned the lessons of faith early and he let those lessons settle deep in his heart and spirit. Terrified of speaking in public and convinced he couldn’t sing his way out of a paper bag, Bob was rarely up in front of the church. Nonetheless, he became the backbone of every congregation he was part of. When deep in thought or tinkering in the basement, he would often hum old, familiar hymns first learned as a child in the country churches of Wilkes County. He even composed his own melody to the hymn “To God Be the Glory,” seemingly pulling the tune out of his head, as a rather exhaustive hymn tune church has not unearthed the version of the hymn that Bob sang for decades.

Bob Blevins loved people in all their wonderful diversity: wife, children, family, friends, church members, strangers. Each time he met someone, he took on a responsibility to share God’s grace and gave thanks for the chance to receive that grace from others, a grace made visible in the encounter between two people created in the image of God who approached one another with love.

Bob is survived by his loving wife, Ann; his daughter Leigh Ann and her husband Keith; and his son John and his husband, Rande. He is preceded in death by his parents Minter Leonard and Pearl; his brother Clyde, and his brother M.L., Jr. His grandchildren and their spouses—Katie (Jamie), Jeremy (Kimberly), Morgan (Courtney), Lauren, Kash, Brogan, and Sam—will miss their Papa. And they will tell Mason, Harrison, Ellyson, Brooks and Raegan-- their own children and Bob’s great-grandchildren—all the gifts that this gentle, faithful, loving, funny man gave them. Bob Blevins lived a life that was remarkable not by measures of worldly achievement but by the qualities and values he embodied and shared. He died on April 6, 2025, a leap year baby who enjoyed over 93 years in this world. Of everything recounted in this obituary, that date is the piece of information least worth remembering. The grace-filled way he lived his life every day up until the day he left us is. And for those memories we give thanks.

The family wants to thank the congregations of the Baptist churches Bob and Ann have attended over the years—New Hope, Becks, Calvary, and Robinhood Road—for surrounding us with your love. We thank all the staff at Bermuda Village Retirement Community for loving and caring for Bob and Ann and for enduring Bob’s good-natured ribbing and corny jokes.

On Wednesday, April 9, 2025, the family will greet visitors at Hayworth-Miller Funeral Home, 3315 Silas Creek Parkway, Winston-Salem, NC from 6-8 PM. The funeral will be on Thursday, April 10 at 2 PM at Robinhood Road Baptist Church, 5422 Robinhood Road, Winston-Salem, NC 27106, with interment at Forsyth Memorial Park.

Hayworth-Miller Silas Creek Chapel is honored to be serving the Blevins family.