Shirley "Jean" Blizzard, 80 of Wauchula, went home to be with the Lord on Tuesday, May 31, 2016. She passed peacefully at home surrounded by family and her faithful canine companions Boots and Chloe. She was born in Goldsboro, North Carolina and raised in Portland, Michigan. She moved to Florida in 1968. She and her late husband would buy failing businesses and improve the facilities and the services offered and then sell the business to do this again. While owning a commercial laundry in Lansing, Michigan she was voted "Business woman of the year" in the 1960's.
After moving to Florida, she obtained a real estate license and worked for GTE Directories Corporation, retiring in 1996 as a clerical supervisor after twenty years. She was a former member of First Baptist Church of Pinellas Park where she taught Sunday school and was in charge of the Sunday morning fellowship with her late husband, Gene. Following her retirement, she volunteered in the church office as the financial secretary for the church for several years. In 2013 she and her husband Gene, moved to Wauchula to be closer to family. She was a member of Oak Grove Baptist Church in Wauchula.
She is preceded in death by her husbands, Richard Letts, Jesse M. Murdock, and Gene Blizzard, her parents, Carl and Mary Burman, brother, Thurman Burman and an infant son Richie Letts. She is survived by three daughters, Cathy Smith, husband Doug, of St. Petersburg, FL, Eleanor Davis, husband Rev. Tim of Wauchula, and Connie Bransford of West Plains, MO, five grandchildren, Sandra Leigh Eldridge, Robert Neuberger, Jennifer Harper (Danny), Justin and Jared Davis as well as 2 great grandchildren, Rebecca Hann and Danny Harper, several nieces and nephews and her beloved "babies" Boots and Chloe.
Rev. Jim Davis, Rev. Tim Davis and Rev. Tim Hawkins officiating.