"She didn't act old. She joked around and took time to play with all of us," said Nuckols. "She baby-sat my son and I'd catch them playing matchbox cars. She'd be crawling on the floor right next to him." Blevins wasn't afraid to get dirty - she played mud pies with her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, too. She made up nicknames for people on the spot. A tall man became "Long John," an excessive talker became "Rubber Jaw." When it snowed, she loved to have snowball fights or go sleigh riding. And she loved to flat-foot.

But she could be serious, too, and had a fiery temper to match her red hair.

Blevins died July 22 at age 76 of complications from a stroke she suffered last year.

Up until the stroke, Blevins was always on the move, even when arthritis required she use a walker.

"She'd use that walker and still go. It didn't matter," said Nuckols, who inherited her grandmother's red hair and matching temperament.

Blevins spent nearly 30 years in the finishing department of the Dublin Garment factory. Weekdays from 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. from the 1950s through the 1980s, she ironed every garment that came down her line.

An attempt to unionize the factory workers failed in the early 1960s. Blevins' daughter, Yvonne Nuckols of Dublin, remembers when a union representative visited their house.

"She told them she didn't need anyone to speak up for her, she could speak for herself," Yvonne Nuckols said. "At work, if she thought something was unfair, she'd just speak her piece."

Blevins' husband, Calvin, also spent his career in manufacturing - at Burlington Mill. They both got home in late afternoon, he said, and often went shopping to buy model cars for their son, and later, great-grandson.

"Oh yeah, she spoiled us," said Edith Blevins' granddaughter Belinda Nuckols. "She gave my children a peppermint pattie every time. You couldn't come into her house and not eat." Blevins made "good ol' country cooking" of beans and cornbread and biscuits and gravy, Nuckols said.

"She was fun, always telling us stories about growing up - that she took Grandpa away from some other girl."

Blevins was born in West Virginia. Her father was killed in a coal mine accident when she was 3 years old, so Blevins' mother moved the family back to her hometown of Parrott in Pulaski County. Edith and Calvin met in Dublin and married in Pulaski 60 years ago.

"I had a good life with her," Calvin Blevins said. "She joked with me and would get on me about it if she was mad at the kids. She didn't drink or smoke and was ready to go to church any time I'd take her."

Images of Jesus and the Last Supper decorate the Blevins home along with family photos. The couple took turns cleaning Grace Baptist Church in Dublin with other congregation members. Edith Blevins loved going to all-day singing and dinner events at the church. Along with worship, she just liked visiting with people, her daughter said.

"She'd say, 'I have to ask you questions or I won't know anything,' " said Yvonne Nuckols.

She offered comfort - a shoulder to cry on and a Popsicle - to her family in times of crisis, but never said, "I told you so."

"She just had that look, but never came out and said it," Teresa Nuckols said.