Obituary of Frances Victoria Blair

Fran Blair, a teacher and mother to both her own children and others, died Friday in a hospital in Fairfax, Va.. She was 80.

She was hospitalized and died of natural causes.

As a parent and an educator, Mrs. Blair, who lived in Reston, Va., extended her passion as a mother and vocation as a teacher to hundreds of other children, whether it was students she tutored in the Chantilly Minority Student Achievement Committee or students she, her husband and children tutored at home or her mentoring of family members and family friends.

Mrs. Blair was the Fairfax County Public Schools nominee in 1999 for the Agness Meyer Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award. In an interview with the CentreView newspaper in 1999, Mrs. Blair said, “My basic belief is that all children can learn – you just have to help them,” adding “I won’t give up on kids; I put the responsibility for their learning on myself.”

Mrs. Blair also served as a vice president of the Chantilly Minority Achievement Committee, where she, her husband, Thomas, and sons, Todd and Jayson, participated in the Saturdays Toward Excellence Program Tutoring program for students.

“I think we need to teach parents to be parents so they know how to help their children in school and be advocates for their kids,” Mrs. Blair once said of her philosophy for advocacy for children, as she was for many, including her sons. She added, “I’d like for all people to be treated equally.”

When she was not teaching, Mrs. Blair spent her time mentoring, tutoring, tending to her vegetable garden, at church, spending time with her sons and helping children, family members and friends. “I really love my kids and have enjoyed raising them,” she once told a newspaper reporter.

Mrs. Blair enjoyed traveling to places like Rome, the Effiel Tower in Paris, South Africa and Williamsburg, Va., reading Mary Higgins Clark and John Grisham books and the Bible and watching comedic movies like “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” or anything with Whoopie Goldberg or Season Connery in it.

Fran Blair was born Frances Victoria Veney in a rural town on the Northern Neck of Virginia, to Getrude Veney, a homemaker, and Robert Veney, a fisherman. She was born on January 1, 1943. In the Northern Neck, she attended a segregated, one-room schoolhouse, long before the two U.S. Supreme Court rulings desegregating schools, known as the Brown vs. Board of Education cases, opened up opportunities for African-American children.   

She was the first and only of her siblings to graduate from college and set a goal early on to help make sure that her nieces and nephews had opportunities in life. She attended Virginia State University, where she obtained a bachelor's degree in special education and psychology before obtaining a master’s degree in special education from The George Washington University.

While at George Washington, she moved to Columbia, Md. where she taught at state special education schools at Rosewood Center in Owens Mills, Md. and another, Great Oaks Center in Beltsville, Md., where she opened the school and was the first principal there.  She attended Columbia Baptist Fellowship while in the area.

While in Maryland, she met and then married Thomas Delano Blair, on May 5, 1973. Their son, Jayson, was born in 1976 and their son, Todd, was born in 1978.

In 1981, she and her family moved to Clear Lake, Tx. outside of Houston, where she focused on raising her children before returning to teaching when the family moved to Marietta, Ga. in 1983. In Marietta, she taught at Bells Ferry Elementary School and the family attended Johnson Ferry Baptist Church.

In 1990, Mrs. Blair and her family moved to Centreville, Va., where she began her 11-year career in the Fairfax County Public Schools and where she and her family attended Centreville Baptist Church, where she and her husband taught Sunday School.

In Fairfax County, she worked as a as a teacher at Brookfield Elementary School, Lanier Middle School, Rocky Run Middle School and Chantilly High School before working as the mainstream coordinator for special education students at Westfields High School. In her final role, Mrs. Blair, who retired in 2002, advocated to make sure students received the services and education they needed.

In her 1999 interview, she explained her passion for helping children and others. “I’d like all people to be treated equally,” she said, adding “I don’t think we are there yet.”

Mrs. Blair is survived by her husband and two children, her daughter-in-law Rachael Mein Blair, and Todd and Rachael’s three children, Emma, Bennett and Natalie.