Blair, Andrew J. (Jackson), 1908-1993

Biography

Andrew Jackson Blair (1908–1993) was a U.S. Navy chaplain's assistant and church musician who served with Construction Battalion Detachment 1045 and the 147th Naval Construction Battalion during World War II.

Blair was born on March 21, 1908, in Windom, Texas, the son of Andrew Jackson "Jack" Blair and Belle Aurelia Cain Blair. He had several siblings, including: Bernice Myrtle Blair, Willard Cain Blair, Edward Francis Blair, and Margaret Loubelle Blair (later Biard). He graduated from high school in Hugo, Oklahoma, in May 1926 and studied piano privately for approximately ten years. In 1932, he married Louise Walker in Marietta, Oklahoma. In the fifteen years preceding his naval service, Blair worked extensively as a church organist and choir director. He attended Meadow-Draughan Business School for three months in 1943.

Blair entered the Navy in 1943 and served at Camp Peary, Williamsburg, Virginia. He also served with Construction Battalion Detachment 1045, Petroleum Division 1, at the Advance Base Depot hut area in Davisville, Rhode Island, and later in the Mediterranean Area, including southern France in 1944. During this period, he contributed to the battalion newsletters The Oily Rag and The Junior Rag, frequently as a cartoonist. He subsequently served with the 147th Naval Construction Battalion on Okinawa, where he held the rating of Yeoman First Class (Y1c) and served as Chaplain's Assistant. There, he served as Managing Editor of the battalion newsletter Mate Slate and contributed cartoons to the battalion yearbook staff. By October 1945, he worked with Chaplain S. O. Price and Lieutenant Moore to plan the construction of the battalion chapel.

Following the war, Blair worked as an interior decorator. He died in 1993 in Hugo, Oklahoma.

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