Libby Marie Blanchard Van Oss

Mrs. Libby B. Van Oss, 94, of Baton Rouge, LA, passed away Friday, September 12, 2025. She was born in Napoleonville, LA, on December 27, 1930, and was the youngest child of the late Sidney and Laura Templet Blanchard.

She graduated from Assumption High School in 1948 and later attended trade school in Baton Rouge. She worked as an executive secretary at the Louisiana State University Cooperative Extension Service and retired after 31 years of service.

She met Leland “Pete” Van Oss on a blind date set up by his sister Joyce. She and Pete married in 1968. Danny was born in 1969, and Laurance was born in 1971. They lived at their Cedardale home for over 50 years.

She was a caregiver throughout her life, taking great care of her grandmother, her mother, her brother, Willard, and also towards the end of his life, her husband, Pete, as well.

Libby was a sweet, kind, loving, compassionate person who was loved by all who knew her.

She is survived by her sons, Laurance Van Oss; Daniel Van Oss, his wife Donna Van Oss, and their children, Samuel Van Oss and Amelia Van Oss, Joyce Van Oss Meadows (sister-in-law), Sandra Harris Van Oss (sister-in-law), and many nieces, nephews, and cousins. In addition to her parents, she was predeceased in death by her husband, and her brothers, Willard Blanchard and Albert Blanchard, and her sister, Doris Mese.

Relatives and friends of the family are invited to attend the Visitation at St. Jean Vianney Church, 16166 S. Harrold's Ferry Road, Baton Rouge, Louisiana on Thursday, September 18, 2025 from 10AM until 11AM. The Funeral Mass will begin at 11 AM. Interment will be in Louisiana National Cemetery, Zachary, Louisiana on Monday, September 22, 2025 at 1PM.

Special thanks to the Lady of the Lake and Hospice of Baton Rouge staff who cared for Libby during her last days. In lieu of flowers, please donate to Hospice of Baton Rouge — The Butterfly Wing.

A Tribute

There’s certainly a quiet and dignified beauty to living your life without noticeable flourish. The ones closest to you see it, however. Daily, in fact. Without even having to strain over its frequency… if only you stop once-in-a-while—and just long enough—to regard it.

And, though, try as I might, I have never been able to reconcile exactly how-in-the-world I could have ended up so fortunate as to have just such a person as my mother. I took no exceptions to believe I always deserved or ever earned her gifts necessarily. However, not allowing my brother and I to believe we were ever anything other than worthy of it… may have been one of her greatest clemencies. Whether or not you always recognized it while in her presence, the forbearance of her goodness was always pure. Her genuine sweetness and goodwill was in her nature—built-in, immovable, and always expanding. No one ever walked away having not felt it in some measure. If, at once, you were a stranger, yet, acquainted through family, you could rest-assured from then on going forward, you would be treated almost nearly as such.

When I was still very young, probably having just started school, I remember asking her (all too often) to scratch my back—always “just for a little while” as I waited to fall asleep. Therefore, I wasn’t ‘tucked in’ by any traditional method necessarily—and so, because of this—she then, would always just lay horizontally across the foot of my bed in order to meet this nightly invitation. Of course—being the unripened runt I was at the time—this devoted sacrifice was beyond the scope of my understanding in these moments. As with anyone, in due time, her hand (and then, fingers), eventually would slow to a barely discernable movement, and would, gradually sputter to a halt from exhaustion. At which point-in-time, I would pestilently give her these fitful, little nudges and kicks with my tiny feet… which, of course, was to spurn her on to keep going. She always did. Having never forgotten that (and, in my own way) I tried to return the spirit and favor of those times back to her as we, each, grew older. Little nudges and kicks to spurn her to keep going as it became my time to take care of her.

Multiply and map the giving nature and sentiment for that bedtime ritual onto 1000’s of other similar ones—and it still wouldn’t be enough to encapsulate the gracefulness of her sacrifices or the selflessness that guided her spirit. If you are reading this and were lucky enough to have known her well—or, even a little—then you understand how blessed my brother and I were to have been her sons and how lucky my father was to have had her as his wife. Her life was filled with nearly 95 years of endless giving and love without conditions. It was spent truly as a gift to others, rarely ever thinking or placing her own needs before those whom she cared for—always giving more than she ever took—as that was simply not her way… right up until the very end. She never asked for or expected praise, yet, deserved it more than anyone else I’ve ever known. I have always appreciated the quote below by William Penn The age of it has not lessened its truth.

“Life is eternal, and love is immortal; and death is only an horizon; and an horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight.”

Love You, Mom. And, all of us know… you will always be just beyond the horizon.