Vera Blake Carpenter

Vera Blake
Carpenter
Vera Blake Carpenter, died on Monday, January 29, 2007. Vera Diehl Blake Carpenter of Goodwin House West, Falls Church, Virginia, died peacefully in her sleep of an aortic aneurysm at 4:35 a.m. in Alexandria Hospital. Four daughters, Victoria Firth of Hong Kong, Janet Stenzel of Wiesbaden, Germany, Vera Thiers of Oberursel, Germany, and Beatrice Alexander of Oakton, Virginia and a son Robert W. Blake Jr of Corning, New York, and ten grandchildren survive her. Born Vera Denton Diehl on 20 July 1926 in Wilmington, North Carolina, she was the third child of Victoria Lynch and Arthur Chester Diehl. She was sent to boarding school in Washington, DC, graduating from Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School in 1943. Thereafter, she attended Hollins College in Roanoke, Virginia, for one year before leaving to marry Capt. Robert Wilkin Blake, USMC, of Canton, Ohio in September 1944. They had six children, of which one, Joseph Meyer Blake, died in a car accident in 1970. During her years in Canton, Ohio, she was a member of Brookside Country Club, and was active with the Junior League, the Garden Club, Sewing, among others. She was an excellent sportswoman: playing tennis and golf in her later years, riding horses and sailing when she was young. After the death of her husband, Robert Blake, of a heart attack in 1976, she married T. Bruce (Boots) Carpenter of Youngstown, Ohio in October of 1981. They moved to Wilmington, North Carolina in 1982, where she continued to live after his death in January 1997. She was a member of the Yacht Club, the Cape Fear Country Club and the Surf Club. Suffering from post-polio syndrome, she moved to Oakton, Virginia to be nearer her youngest daughter in 2000, and in August 2004, moved into Goodwin House West. A funeral Mass will take place on Thursday (today), February 1st., at St. Athanasius Roman Catholic Church, on Leesburg Pike in Vienna, Virginia, at 10 a.m. Graveside service will be held Saturday at 11 a.m. in St. John's Cemetery, Canton, with Fr. Leo Carley officiating. She will be buried next to her first husband, Robert Blake. The Wackerly Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements. In lieu of flowers, please send donations to the Society of Saint Pius X, Regina Coeli House, 11485 N. Farley Road, Platte City, MO 64079, 816-753-0073. For those unable to attend services you may register online at our Online Registry page at:
wackerlyfuneralhome.com
(Wackerly, 330-455-5235)