There was a time when a night of dancing was not high on Ted Blaschke’s list of things to do.
“I loved to dance socially,” said his wife, Marilyn Blaschke, “but he didn’t,” until the couple got involved in the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society. Then, he couldn’t go on a business trip without looking for a group of people he could dance with.
Blaschke helped establish an official branch of the dance organization in Atlanta and others across the Southeast, and he also loved teaching the style of dancing, said his son, Karl Blaschke.
“It is a social dance and you are with a lot of people,” Marilyn Blaschke said. “And Ted loved the people … who eventually became dear friends.”
Theodore Blaschke of Conyers died Saturday of complications from cancer. He was 80. A memorial service is planned for 1 p.m. Saturday at Scot Ward Funeral Services, which is in charge of arrangements.
Blaschke, an engineer, earned an undergraduate degree from Purdue University and a master’s from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was working toward a doctorate at MIT in the early 1960s before moving to Atlanta to take an engineering job in 1967, his wife said.
It was while they were in Massachusetts that they were introduced to the dance society. In the basement of their first home, the previous owner had installed a hardwood floor that was used by Scottish country dancers. The dance group invited the Blaschkes to join, in hopes the basement floor would still be available to them.
Marilyn Blaschke told the group they’d gladly meet with them, but her husband was not as accommodating.
“It was on a Friday night, I remember, and Ted said he wasn’t going because he’d had a hard week and he wanted to put his feet up and relax,” his wife said. “But the upshot of it all was that I told him I’d hired a baby sitter, we went that night, and afterward the teacher invited us to his home. Ted was hooked.”
As Blaschke’s engineering jobs took him and his family across the country and to different parts of the world, he took Scottish country dancing with him. When the couple lived in San Diego, they helped put together what eventually became an official branch of the society, his son said.
Blaschke was so dedicated to the style that he studied to become a teacher of the dance, his wife said. The couple, who would have celebrated 59 years of marriage in September, even choreographed their own original dances. They had a collection of dances dedicated to the memory of their daughter, Gretchen Anne Blaschke, who died in 1981.
“Ted was always willing to try something different in a dance,” said Robert Messner, a friend of nearly 30 years. “He’d teach the hard parts first, and then weave in the other steps. He was a great teacher.”
While Blaschke loved his career as an engineer, his son said,“he dedicated himself to Scottish country dancing, and because of that it is going strong today in branches across the Southeast and other parts of the country.”
Blaschke is also survived by several other relatives.
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