Lucy Joyce Bledsoe Anderson, born March 5, 1926 at Pensacola, Florida, passed away on July 23, 2025 in Walton County, Florida. She was the youngest daughter of the eight children of Will P. Bledsoe and Bessie Dell McKnight Bledsoe. She married Lance Warren Anderson, then a U. S. Army Air Force wartime pilot, at Warrington, Florida in 1944. They were happily married 67 years until his death in 2011.
She was preceded in death her parents and by her son, Mark Alan Anderson (Peggy). She is survived by her children, Sheila Joyce Anderson, Lance Warren Anderson Jr., and Joan Elizabeth Anderson MacDonald (Robert) and her seven civilized way-above-average grandchildren, Linwood Addison “Skip” Fuller IV, Lauren Elaine MacDonald, Christopher Stuart MacDonald, Sunne Joy Anderson, Mark Alan “Bo” Anderson II, Sean Anderson MacDonald, and Elizabeth Diane MacDonald, and 10 great-grandchildren.
She attended Pensacola Junior College, Gulf Coast Community College, and Louisiana State University. She was a homemaker at Selma, Alabama, Greensboro, North Carolina, Miami Beach, Florida, Miami, Florida, Coral Gables, Florida, Valparaiso, Florida, Fort Walton Beach, Florida (2), Mary Esther, Florida (2), Pensacola, Florida (3), Birmingham, Alabama, Baton Rouge, Louisiana (2), Decatur, Alabama, St. Louis, MO, Brussels, Belgium, Apalachicola, Florida, Panama City, Florida, Khartoum, Sudan, Pensacola Beach, Florida, and Ponce De Leon, Florida. She grew up in the Southern Baptist Church and was currently a member of Pleasant Grove Baptist Church. She was a member and officer of the Missouri Federation of Garden Clubs, Florida Federation of Women’s Clubs, and the International Women Volunteers of Sudan. She was a writer, an artist and teacher of Art For Children.
From 2018 until 2024 she wrote the weekly newspaper column “Lucy Bee’s Corner”. In her book “Bledsoe- An American Family”, she wrote: “There is a people who has demonstrated a sense of self-worth tempered with responsibility in the task of getting on with creating families and community with dignity, reverence and steadfastness. They have met diversity and success with equanimity and a strength of character that does not wilt in self-concern or mutate into arrogance. They have journeyed where service has led them. They have carried on uncomplaining as need dictated. They served God and were without peer in defense of the freedom of conscience. They are the Bledsoes.”
We wish to thank Gentiva Hospice for their caring support.
The Celebration of Life will at Pleasant Grove Baptist Church 5064 Co Hwy 1883 at 11:00 AM on Thursday, July 31, 2025 with Reverend Dan Newton officiating
Flowers are accepted or donations may be made to the Florida Baptist Children’s Home at 1000 Chemstrand Rd, Cantonment,FL 32533.
Burial will be held at Pleasant Grove Baptist Church Cemetery.
