Frances Bacheller Gaither Blake died Sept. 24, 2010, in Vicksburg at Heritage House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center.

She was born Oct. 23, 1922, in Mexico City, Mexico, to Fanny Bullitt Williams and Roscoe Bradley Gaither who, at the time, was an American lawyer working in Mexico City. She married Daniel Carmichael Blake on Dec. 17, 1947, in Vicksburg.

Together, they had four children, Daniel Warren Blake (Phyllis), Bradley Carlton Blake, Frances Blake Perkins (Frank) and Henry LeGrand Blake (Gloria), who survive her. Her grandchildren are Nicholas Ashcraft Blake (Julia), Anna Conner Perkins, Myra Dean Blake, Bradley Carlton Blake Perkins and Austin Williams Perkins and one great-grandchild, Patrick Conner Blake. She is also survived by a brother, George Manney Gaither, of Winchester, Va. She was predeceased by her husband, Daniel Carmichael Blake, who died in 1982, and her sister, Anne Brumley Gaither.

She became fluent in Spanish while living in Mexico City, where she learned to drive in the Mexico City traffic and ride horseback in Chapultepec Park. She later returned with her parents to the States and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Florida State College for Women in Tallahassee in 1944, now Florida State University, where she majored in romance languages and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa sorority. Afterward, she worked in the passport division in Washington, D.C.

She was introduced to Mr. Blake in Natchez by her cousin, Richard Conner, and lived the rest of her life at Blakely, where she remained perennially busy growing orchids, adopting stray animals, watching over her family and later keeping grandchildren, endlessly occupied playing cards and drinking ginger ale from champagne glasses.

She was a member of the Vicksburg Warren Humane Society, the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America in the State of Mississippi, the Order of the First Families of Mississippi 1699-1817 and the Vicksburg Art Group, fondly known as the “Culture Vultures.”

She was intensely interested in genealogy and kept records of all family history, including an abundance of carefully annotated photos of children, dogs and grandchildren. She transcribed volumes of Civil War-era Conner diaries with her sister-in-law, Mary Blake Gorman, and printed by hand typeset a small diary. Though fascinated by the past, she was an eminently modern woman who traded convention for practicality and who preferred kindness to correctness.

The family would like to express their deepest gratitude to Matilda Stewart, who cared for Mrs. Blake, as well as the employees of the Heritage House. It would be the wish of Mrs. Blake that donations be made to the Vicksburg Warren Humane Society in lieu of flowers.

Mrs. Blake will be buried at the family cemetery at Blakely.

Riles Funeral Home assisted with the arrangements.