Lila Blechman, formerly Lila Hanson, nee Lila Lucy Bullock, died peacefully on June 21, 2025. Lila was born Oct. 29, 1921 to Dorothy Julia Smith and Earl Clayton Bullock in the family farmhouse in Underhill Center, Vt. She was the third of seven children and the last of her generation.
Lila was a 40-year resident of Damariscotta and enjoyed the last eight years of her remarkable life residing at Hodgdon Green. During her 104th year she was awarded the coveted Boston Cane as the oldest Damariscotta citizen. She is survived by her three children – Susan Laffin, of South Carolina, Sarah Hanson, of California, and George Hanson, of British Columbia, Canada; along with six grandchildren (one tragically deceased); and seven great-grandchildren. Lila was married to George F. Hanson 1943-1971, living primarily in Methuen, Mass. She married Sheldon Blechman in 1978 with whom she settled at Damariscotta Lake after stints in Ohio, Illinois, and Colorado.
Lila’s philosophy of life is distilled in her often-repeated recipe for longevity: “Be kind. Be giving. Be happy.”
Lila was a young child when her family was forced by the Great Depression to migrate from northern Vermont to South Lawrence, Mass., where her father found work as a public transit mechanic. Torn from the bucolic setting of her grandfather’s farm in West Bolton, Vt., she and her siblings long yearned for the pastoral beauty and quietude of this rural setting. In her youth, Lila was a frequent visitor to the family farm tending cows in the summer and harvesting ice in the winter. During WWII the farm was expropriated by the U.S. government and subsumed into the Ethan Allen Military Base.
Lila was a 12th generation American who traced her earliest North American ancestor to 1637 Salem, Mass. Two of her great-grandfathers served as Green Mountain Boys in the Civil War. Her father drove a munitions truck/ambulance on the Western Front during WWI and her first husband and father to her children served on Destroyer Escort USS Keith in WWII.
Lila graduated from Searles High School in Methuen, Mass. in 1938 and from Essex Agricultural School in 1940 with intention of becoming a dietician. She never forgot that the head of “Essex Aggie” denied her the honor of valedictorian because, with her petit stature, “she didn’t look like a valedictorian.” World War II detoured her to work as a lab assistant in a Lowell Mass munitions factory.
Initially, after the war, she became a stay-at-home mom while working with her husband to build a wholesale food delivery service. In the 1950s and 1960s, after her youngest child started school, she worked in the New England shoe industry. And because Lila always held high standards along with her quick wit and dexterous skills, she quickly established herself as the go-to person for creating the perfect shoes for sales and marketing exhibitions.
Always curious; always resilient; always active; as life continued to unfold, Lila dealt in antiques; was house mother at a halfway house for adolescent boys; distributor for a costume jewelry company; and custom seamstress making and tailoring formal and business attire for women.
Lila was a fun-loving, gregarious, energetic, quick-witted, talented, well-read, thoughtful, kind, generous, appreciative woman. Her pies and doughnuts were legendary. Instigated, we think, during early schooling when teachers would use corporal punishment to force her out of being left-handed, she became fully ambidextrous. Lila could write frontwards and backwards in the same handwriting with either hand. And, without preparation or hesitation, she could write any sentence given her using both hands writing in opposite directions from the sentence’s center point.
Lila navigated her way through many difficulties and setbacks in her life while somehow always finding the silver lining. She repeatedly proved her remarkable resilience and never complained. In reference to the well-worn adage “If life hands you lemons…” Lila made a lot of lemonade! She made friends wherever she went. She was universally loved.
She loved a good joke. Her son shared this with her the day before she died: “A woman, whose husband had recently died, visited a medium so that she could speak with him. When contacted in a séance, she asked how he was doing. He replied that heaven seemed OK so far, but that it was a lot hotter than he had expected!” Her laugh was infectious! Oh, and in the 48 hours preceding her death, Lila completed six New York Times crossword puzzles! Vibrant and curious for every minute of her 103 years and 8 months.
Well done, Lila! Well done indeed! We shower you with our blessings as you pass from this realm. Thank you for being you.
