Deanne Blackwood was born on December 19, 1944 in Enid, Oklahoma to Myron and Doretta May. She was raised in Enid with her sister, Cheryl, eight years her junior. Her mother was self-made, growing her own beauty shop business inside of her home. Her father was a WW2 veteran of Normandy on D-Day.
Little did she know at 16 she had met her future husband already.
Deanne moved to Norman and started her college education in 1963. She graduated with a BS of Education in 1967. Following college, she married her high school sweetheart, Don, and became Deanne Blackwood on January 28, 1967.
As a military wife, Deanne traveled the country and Europe. She visited almost all the lower 48 states and European countries with the wives of the wardroom. She taught elementary school in Oklahoma and Rhode Island until the birth of her first child, Stephanie. She completed her Masters in Education in 1973. She became a homemaker and mother starting in 1970. She welcomed Kara to the family in 1975. Due to the Navy, she lived in Oklahoma, Rhode Island twice, Georgia, Idaho and South Carolina twice.
Don and Deanne were married for 56 years and together for 62 years. They grew up together, raised two daughters together, and enjoyed watching their four grandchildren be born and begin to grow up themselves.
Survivors are husband Don, daughters Kara and Stephanie, and grandsons Liam, Preston, Collin and Dean. Her daughters are managers in the high-tech industry with Kara living in Frisco with her family and Stephanie in Austin with hers.
She was very proud of her sons-in-law, one earning a law degree and licensed attorney and becoming an executive in tech, and one earning a PHD in Physics, now employed by the University of Texas.
Our lasting memory of Deanne is as a mother and wife with a tremendous, often irreverent, sense of humor. She strove to make everyone she met laugh and feel loved.
We love her and will miss her forever.
A celebration of Deanne’s life will be held at 2:00 p.m., Saturday, September 16, 2023 at Turrentine-Jackson-Morrow Funeral Home in Allen, Texas. The service will also be live streamed at the following link: https://celebrationoflife.tv/blog/deanne-blackwood. The family will receive friends during a viewing on Friday evening, September 15, 2023 from 7:00 p.m. until 9:00 p.m. at the funeral home in Allen.