I’ve been a Seventh-day Adventist all my life. My grandmother was an Adventist. She entertained all the ministers that came to town, so we all got to know them. She had a big house, and a lot of the church ladies came to help serve. My twin sister, brother, and I used to complain because there were always so many folk in the house. You know how children are.
We were always in church, so mother didn’t have to worry with us on Sabbath because that’s where we would be. When we got to be school-age, we went to the little church school in Paducah, Kentucky. Then, in 1927, we moved to Gary, Indiana, where my father got a job in the mill.
Michael Blanchard was an energetic young man affiliated with the youth department. At that time they didn’t have regional conferences, and Blacks didn’t have a camp. I remember the Illinois Conference had their camp for the children. Michael went and asked them if they could keep their team over and let us come in, and they agreed to that. We were all excited to go to camp.
On Sabbath Michael came on the campground dressed in a white Palm Beach suit. All of the older girls were just having a fit. But we were still young, so we were not interested. Everyone was asking him, "Mr. Blanchard, will you sign my plaque?" He signed my plaque, and he wrote, "I think you’re a swell little girl. Call me sometime," and put his phone number. My sister said, "Who does he think he is, calling us little girls?" We couldn’t stand him. Who would of thought that he would end up being my husband years later?
I finished high school. My highest aptitude score was math, so I took the bookkeeping course. I was the first Black girl to be hired at the city hall in Gary. It was war time, and the government was offering more money to work with them, so I got a job in Chicago in the war bond division. It was during that time that Michael was seeing me because I was going to Shiloh Church, which was the largest church. We married before he was shipped overseas.
I’ve always been a person who has done my work and stayed by my chores, so when they built an office in New Jersey, I was chosen to go. I came home to Chicago during the week that they were having this session at the Shiloh Church to talk about forming a Black conference. I didn’t go or know anything about it. I understand that there was a lot of bickering back and forth, but they decided that they were going to organize, so it was organized in 1944.
At the time, we were satisfied with what was going on. But they explained that none of the Black girls could get jobs in a church office. Most of them went to the government, and that’s where I was. So it really didn’t bother me one way or another. But then I found out what the purpose was—our people could develop church leadership skills.
Now I believe this was supposed to happen, because I noticed that the work grew by leaps and bounds after that. You see, we had our own ministers before, and all they did was preach to our churches and hold evangelistic meetings. But nobody worked in a conference office, and I guess nobody bothered.
After I visited with my parents and my husband’s parents, I went back to New Jersey. And it was while I was there that they asked me to come and work at the new conference office. After I began working for the church, I noticed a difference. We weren’t cut off from everything, and we started mingling together with people from other conferences. It wasn’t like that before. We would go to these meetings and everybody would be there together. It brought understanding between the Blacks and the Whites.
Our pastors had never been on conference committees before. Now they became members of the conference committee, and they could help take care of the conference business. Laymen were able to serve on the committee as well.
We began to see our former pastors develop into church leaders. J. G. Dasent, our first president, helped us buy the campground at Cassopolis. When Charles Bradford came, he helped us build the first cabins. And of course my mother went to camp meeting every year. She kept my two children in her little tent. She’d put a floor and rugs in it, and it looked like a little house in there. They enjoyed it.
Robert Carter became our first Black union president. To know somebody in that position made you feel good because that had never happened. Then some of our former pastors like F. L. Peterson, G. E. Peters, and Owen Troy were at the General Conference office. It made us feel that we were more involved and closer to what was going on than before.
Bradford later became the president of the North American Division. We were very good friends because he was the president of the Lake Region before he got that position, and I was his secretary for a time. He was such a good speaker, and he was a good president. He was a Christian, and he did a lot of things that made us feel good.
I’ve been with the treasury department for 46 years. So many people know me, and I know their faces, but I can’t call their names. Van Putten was the one who gave me the name Sister "B." To the children, I’m Grandma "B" or Aunt "B." I am "B" to everyone. I don’t think some of the folk know my name.
When they told me I had cancer, I asked the Lord to save me or whatever He wanted to do. I don’t think I was out four weeks, and I was back at work. And they tell me the doctors at Hinsdale are still wondering how I healed so fast. They asked, "You said you are 80 years old?" And I said, "That’s right." They said, "What do you account for it?" and I said, "Well, when I sit down I feel like I’m 40, but when I get up, I feel like I’m 90. If you think I look younger, it’s just because I’ve been an Adventist all my life. That’s all I can say."
Henrietta Blanchard recently retired after 46 years in the treasury department at the Lake Region Conference, and Gary Burns is the Lake Union communication director.
