Billie Louise Blair

A sweet spirit enters Heaven. After a long battle with COPD, Billie Louise Blair, 85, of Paris, TX passed away on Thursday, January 19, 2023 at Focused Care of Sherman in Sherman, TX. She was born to Sadie and Bill Scharnhorst on October 31, 1937 in Corona, California. She was the youngest sister to Ila Jean Johnson and Norma Dean Scharnhorst. Billie grew up and graduated from Dolores High School in Dolores, Colorado in 1955 and later acquired her own beauty shop in Aztec, NM.

She leaves behind three children, Sherry Blizzard and husband Jim Blizzard, of Piney Flats, Tennessee, Steve Pruitt of Paris, TX, and Tom Pruitt and wife Shanna Pruitt, both of Paris, TX, and three bonus children, Shane and Rusty Chance and Kristi Lenard of Aztec, NM, all of whom she loved very much. Billie’s legacy includes five grandchildren: Chris, Jerod, Colton, Talon and Zoe, and 8 Great-Grandchildren.

Billie was preceded in death by Thomas Pruitt in 1963, and Robert Blair in 2016.

Per Billie’s wishes, a cremation will take place and her ashes will be scattered on the West Fork of the Dolores River where she loved to camp and fish for rainbow trout.

She was a resident of Colonial Lodge Assisted Living for the last years of her life.

Nothing describes Billie’s life better than her own “I Am From” poem that she wrote on April 10, 2010:

I am from the flour sack dresses that Mom made that I wore so proudly, from fresh corn of the cob and trout caught in an ice cold river.

I am from an old white weathered farmhouse with a coal stove in the living room and a wood cookstove in the kitchen as our only heat, from the two lilac bushes outside our front door with Colorado columbine around the corner with bleeding hearts in amongst them.

I am from the Fourth of July at my Uncle Walt’s house with Mom’s homemade ice cream and Granny’s white cake.

I am from the Scharnhorst and the Peel’s, from honesty and tenderness.

I am from “Never do anything for spite, you’ll only hurt yourself,” and from “Never, never take anything that’s not your own.”

I am from walking down the lane to go to church with our neighbors, from Bible School at the Baptist Church. I am from German and Heinz 57 shoemakers, from homemade bread, gravy, pinto beans, and potatoes, potatoes.

I am from a Dad who read to us at night, from Amos and Andy and the Creaking Door on the radio.

I am from a dad who taught me how to fish, and the Mom who taught me goodness and compassion for others.

I am from memories of the farm, the potato cellar, canning cellar, the work it all took to make our lives whole and productive, from the meals Mom made out of everything we grew ourselves, the lunch—eaten in the garden by the ditch: radishes, tomatoes, cucumber, and lettuce.

I am from simple country folks who knew what life was all about and from parents who love me and how I truly miss them yet today.

Cremation was under the care and direction of Bright-Holland Funeral Home.