Peggy Nell Bledsoe

Peggy Nell Bledsoe (White), age 96, died in Arlington, Virginia on February 2, 2026 at the home of her son, Michael Bledsoe, and daughter-in-law, Melinda Bledsoe. She died in their care and in daily touch with her daughters, Barbara Lynn Koester and Kimberly Bledsoe Chapa, who also served as her caregivers for many years. Peggy was predeceased by her husband of 65 years, Claude Carrell Bledsoe, who died on April 23, 2012, her eldest son, Claude Carrell “Chuck” Bledsoe, Jr., who died on January 28, 2025, her younger twin brothers, Robert “Bob” Edward White, Jr. (1934-2018) and James “Jim” Street White (1934-2001), her mother, Nell Francis White (Street) (1905-1999), and her father, Robert Edward White, Sr. (1901-1946). Peggy is survived by three children—Barbara, Michael, and Kimberly— and nine grandchildren—Peggy, Clayton and Robert Bledsoe, Lucas and Joshua Koester, Kelley and Kirsten Bledsoe, and Ashley and Michelle Nelson, as well as ten great grandchildren and one great-great granddaughter, whose lives and well-being Peggy remained dedicated to all of her days.

Peggy was born in Greensboro, North Carolina on March 10, 1929, the first child and only daughter of Robert and Nell. Shortly after her birth, Peggy and her parents moved to Birmingham, Alabama, where they lived with her paternal great-grandparents, Nathaniel Robert Keeling and Loula Keeling (Berry), in what Peggy described as “a great big house.” As a young girl, Peggy traveled with her father while he worked as a candy salesman and she fondly remembered those times together when she was “the apple of his eye.” In October 1934, when Peggy was six years old, her brothers, Bob and Jim, were born at the Keeling home. Their family of five moved into a home of their own in East Lake after Peggy’s father began working as an auditor for the State of Alabama.

Peggy’s mother, Nell, worked as a nurse all of her life and supported their family during times when Robert was unable to work due to illness. Peggy deeply admired her mother’s dedication to both her vocation and her family, recalling that Nell worked nights, six days a week, during most of Peggy’s childhood, yet “every day off we'd go out to eat and see two movies: a cowboy movie for Bob and Jim, and a romance movie for me and Mama.” At age 14, Nell got Peggy a work permit and she started a job at McCrory’s Five and Dime, where she was assigned to the record department and played records for the customers.

Growing up in Alabama, Peggy was always close to her paternal grandmother, Bessie Lee “Ma Bess” White (Keeling), her paternal great-aunt, Agnes “Aggie” R. Samuel (Keeling), and maternal aunt, Elizabeth “Lizzie” Hibbs Barton (Street). Peggy loved to tell stories of times spent with these dynamic women who served as important role models for her and are pictured beside her in countless photographs throughout her life.

In the mid-40s, the White family moved again, this time to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where Robert began work as an auditor with Roane-Anderson Company, a subcontractor of the Army, which managed the creation of the City of Oak Ridge to support The Manhattan Project. Peggy attended and graduated from Oak Ridge High School in 1947, which was established in 1943 to serve the children of atomic researchers and plant workers. Coincidentally, two of Peggy’s children, Mike and Kim, went on to graduate from Oak Ridge High School in Orlando, Florida decades later. Along with many other young women seeking a steady job and a way to support the war efforts, Peggy was hired as a laboratory worker at Y-12, where the purpose of her daily tasks (to look through a microscope and count and document how many “things” she saw on the petri dish placed in front of her) was kept secret from her.

During her time at Oak Ridge High, Peggy met Claude Bledsoe, a veteran of the United States Navy who served in World War II as a teenager, when he sat next to her on the public Army-provided bus she took to and from school. On May 28, 1947, shortly after her high school graduation, Peggy married Claude in a civil ceremony conducted by the justice of the peace in Clinton, Tennessee, wearing a pink suit. Her mother, brothers, and best friend, Betty Crigger, were in attendance.

In their early married life, Peggy and Claude continued to live in Oak Ridge. They also spent a lot of time in nearby Rose Hill, Virginia, where Claude was raised and his mother, aunts, uncles, and cousins still lived. Every generation of the Bledsoes reunited there over the decades at Maude “Mamaw” Witt Bledsoe’s brick home on the main drag of town and at the farm of Claude’s brother, Robert “Bob” Bledsoe and his wife, Cordia Bledsoe. Peggy cherished Rose Hill all her life and she will return there in the coming months to be buried at Silver Leaf Baptist Church, next to Claude and many other Bledsoes and Witts she knew and loved.

On November 15, 1948, Peggy gave birth to Chuck, and on August 5, 1950, to Barbara Lynn “Sis”, both in Oak Ridge. After Chuck and Sis were born, the four Bledsoes moved to Covington, Kentucky just across the river from Cincinnati, Ohio, where Claude worked as a chauffeur for General Electric and Peggy worked periodically as a waitress in two local Jewish delis and in a “big fancy restaurant” called The Colonial. After Claude and Peggy bought a house in the Northbrook neighborhood of Cincinnati, Michael Wayne “Mike” was born on November 3, 1953 and Kimberly Ann “Kim” was born on September 8, 1957. The 1950s saw both Peggy and Claude embrace a fervent Christian faith, raising their children in the Baptist church. Their house was known as the place where any neighbor kid could come in and grab a cookie from Peggy’s cookie drawer.

In 1963, the family moved to Vero Beach, Florida for one year to explore warmer climates and spend time with Nell “Nana”, after which they went back to Cincinnati until, in 1971, they settled in Florida for the long-run. That year, they moved to the home that would become the Bledsoe family’s gathering place for decades - 1825 Rose Boulevard, Orlando. Second only to Rose Hill, Peggy loved her home on Rose Boulevard. There, Peggy and Claude became longtime members of the Florida Shores Baptist Church on West Oak Ridge Road.

Peggy’s first job in Orlando was in catering at the Orlando International Airport, where her day started at 4:00AM, and before long, she moved on to working as a waitress at Disney’s Contemporary Hotel restaurant. In her 50s, Peggy left Disney to open an in-home daycare, Peggy’s Child Care, taking care of up to 15 children at one time with the help of one employee. In her trademark comedic style, she recalled that “the daycare was Claude’s idea, but I did all the work”. After eight years, she closed the daycare and got a job preparing meals with Orange County Public Schools, including at Oak Ridge High, until she retired. The “lunch ladies” rotated tasks in the kitchen, but Peggy recalled that she was most often assigned to prepare the salads, as she was too tiny to manage the big bread mixing bowl and large soup pots on her own.

In retirement, Peggy and Claude adopted a Boston terrier named Duke, whom they both adored despite his highly rambunctious personality, and she cooked Duke chicken and eggs every day. They continued to welcome everyone to their home on holidays, during school breaks, and whenever someone needed a place to go, as they had always done. Peggy was known for her scrumptious Southern-style cooking–pot roast slow-cooked with carrots and potatoes, collard greens with pork neck, creamed corn, skillet cornbread, and on and on. Peggy and Claude always grew a vegetable garden in their backyard, planting every year on Valentine’s Day for a Spring harvest of green beans, peas, squash, eggplant, and more. And as they grew older themselves, Peggy cared for Claude through his development of Alzheimer’s until his death in 2012.

Peggy spent time living with many of her children and grandchildren in her later years. During the months immediately following Claude’s death, Peggy lived with Mike, Melinda, and Kelley in Arlington, Virginia. She returned in May 2013 to her beloved Rose Boulevard in Orlando, where Kim, Kim’s husband, Paul Chapa, and her great-granddaughter, Aniah Nelson, lived with Peggy until 2017. In Fall 2017, Peggy moved to Sorrento to live with Sis and Lucas, in the home built by Sis’s husband, Raymond Koester. Peggy made one more move back to Arlington, Virginia with Mike and Melinda in February 2025.

Peggy, also known as Peg, Mom, Grandma, Granny, and, inexplicably, Hazel (a nickname bestowed by her granddaughter, Ashley, in childhood), became the matriarch of the Bledsoe family after the death of Maude Witt Bledsoe in 1996. Peggy was a member of “the greatest generation” that saved the world from fascism and would usher in protections for civil rights, social programs like Medicare and Social Security, and the autonomy of women. She enjoyed wearing her Ruth Bader Ginsburg socks as an unabashed declaration of her values! Peggy and Claude also adored President Jimmy Carter, whom they met when attending a service at his home church, Maranatha Baptist, in Plains, Georgia. President Carter’s faith and his embrace of hospice inspired and empowered Peggy late in her life to accept hospice care.

Everyone who knew Peggy could count on her genuine curiosity, her sharp memory and analytical mind, and her quick wit and unmatched sense of humor. In her last week of life, she told her granddaughter, Kirsten, about how she was in a play when she was nine or ten years old that she believed was called “Chattanooga Choo-Choo.” Kirsten asked if Peggy remembered who she played and Peggy said “I was probably the choo-choo!” She mentioned several times in those waning days that she was getting on board the train and going on a trip.

Peggy’s family asks that you keep her in your hearts and memories, taking time to reflect on her impact in your life and the times you shared with her. May Peggy’s memory be a blessing to all who were lucky enough to know this radiant, incomparable woman.