SF3c Atticus Lee Blanton

Atticus Lee Blanton was born in Florida on Dec. 29, 1920. His father, Frank Blanton, worked in real estate. His mother, Annie Kennedy Blanton, was a homemaker.

The 1930 Census identified Annie as the head of a household of five children in Lady Lake in central Florida south-southwest of Jacksonville. The parents officially divorced in 1934.

Atticus, always known as Snooky, completed one year of high school by the time of the spring 1940 Census. He was a “new worker” who earned $98 for 46 weeks of work in 1939. His mother worked at home as a seamstress and an older brother was a fruit-packing-house employee. The three of them in total earned $898. That is equal to $8,200 in 2020. The mother had another unidentified source of income, the Census said, to help support their household of four.

Snooky enlisted in the Navy on Sept. 30, 1940, and by early December was serving on the U.S.S. Arizona. He was a shipfitter and petty officer third class when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941.

His mother died in 1972 at the age of 89. She arranged to have his Purple Heart embedded in the mausoleum at Lady Lake Cemetery, where she is interred.

An older brother, Marvin, served in the Merchant Marines in World War II.