Obituaries:  Blanche Revere Long, 1998, Winn Parish, LA.
Submitted by Greggory E. Davies, 120 Ted Price Lane, Winnfield, LA 71483
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From:  May 15, 1998 Alexandria Daily Town Talk

Earl K. Long's widow dead at 96

Baton Rouge (AP)- Blanche Revere Long, Louisiana's first lady when Earl K.
Long was governor, is dead at the age of 96. 

Her funeral will be at 1 p.m. Friday at Lake Lawn Cemetery in Metairie,
with an hour of visitation beginning at noon.

Mrs. Long grew up in New Orleans and moved back there years after her
husband's death in 1960.  She died this week.

"Blanche Long was a lovely lady whose heart beat for those less fortunate
than she," former U. S. Sen. Russell B. Long, her nephew, wrote in a
statement released Tuesday.  "I was proud to call myself her friend, and I
always will be."

Mrs. Long ws born in Covington, the second daughter of Robert H. and Beulah
Talley Revere.  She was 2 years old when the family moved to New Orlenas.

She studied psychology and commercial law at Tulane University for three
years, then left to take a secretarial course at Soule College.

She met Earl Long while working as a secretary to the president of an
electric company.  They married in 1932.

Mrs. Long had little interest in government before meeting Long, but grew
to enjoy politics, said John Hunt, a nephew of Earl Long.

"She would go with him everywhere," Hunt said. "She knew everybody in the
state just like (Long) did.  I can still picture her on that telephone,
campaigning with him.

Mrs. Long's time as first lady in Louisiana had its rocky points that
attracted national attention.

The most notable was Long's affair with New Orleans stripper Blaze Starr,
later, the subject of the Paul Newman movie "Blaze."

In a 1989 interview, Mrs. Long blamed two strokes her husband suffered in
the late 1950s on her husband's behavior change.

"After two strokes, he was never the same man that I had lived with for 29
years," she said.

Ealr Long died ten days after Louisiana voters elected him to Congress.

Mrs. Long didn't talk about her problemds during those trying times, said
friend and neghbor Katharine Dunham.

"She was a lovely lady," Dunham said.