John Blanchard, 61, generous dentist with a steel-trap memory

It was foolish to play trivia with Dr. John Blanchard. The Fayetteville dentist had an encyclopedic memory, especially when it came to his twin passions of baseball and World War II history.

He once corrected a tour guide at Pearl Harbor during a trip to Hawaii, said his son, Mark Blanchard of Roswell.

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Dr.John Blanchard practiced dentistry for 31 years and loved helping people. He even made emergency visits.

“He was incredible with numbers. He could tell you the seating capacity of every stadium in Major League Baseball. He knew the score of every game in the 1963 St. Louis Cardinals season,” his son said.

Dr. Blanchard had been a fan of baseball, especially the Cardinals, since boyhood, said Dr. Robert Blake, a Fayetteville orthodontist who attended Emory University with Dr. Blanchard and remained his friend for 40 years.

“As a boy, he worked in a rice dryer in Louisiana. It was very hot at the top of those things. He’d listen to the radio, and the St. Louis Cardinals were the closest ball team to western Louisiana at the time,” Dr. Blake said.

Dr. Blanchard often gave money to churches and schools in Fayetteville but never wanted credit for it, said Dr. Blake.

“He was the most generous person I’ve ever known,” he said.

Dr. Blanchard practiced dentistry in Fayetteville for 31 years, and loved his work, said his wife, Linda Blanchard of Fayetteville.

She said he was gratified after helping one patient in particular, a high school girl. “He told me, ‘She doesn’t put her hand in front of her face when she smiles anymore. Can you imagine what a difference that will make in her life?’ “

Dr. Blanchard, 61, of Fayetteville died Monday at Emory University Hospital from complications following a stroke, said his daughter Dr. Karen Blanchard, an Atlanta physician.

The funeral will be 11 a.m. Friday at Peachtree City United Methodist Church’s Robinson Road campus. Carl J. Mowell & Son Funeral Home, Fayetteville, is in charge of arrangements.

Dr. Blanchard watched Fayetteville’s explosive growth over the years and was instrumental in developing Fayetteville’s first office building for medical professionals, Dr. Blake said, as well as an 18-hole golf course that Arnold Palmer helped design. He was president of the development firm for the former Whitewater Country Club.

His son said Dr. Blanchard loved spending time in the backyard with his children — and later grandchildren — grilling hamburgers and steaks and playing Wiffle Ball.

The children sometimes were recruited to help with the landscaping at their father’s office.

Sometimes, his children accompanied him to work.

One Sunday morning, his son said, the rest of the family headed off to church while he went with Dr. Blanchard on an emergency visit to a patient.

“He said the guy had been in a fight the night before and was pretty beat up,” his son said. “We got there, and it was a very young Evander Holyfield.”

Survivors include another daughter, Susan Blanchard of Chicago; a brother, Mac Blanchard of Lake Charles, La.; and three grandchildren.