Beverly was born in Allen County to Raymond Winford Blessing and Ona Irene (Culver) Blessing on May 17, 1928. The family moved from Allen to Wells County in 1933 after purchasing a 160-acre farm just south of Uniondale. Bev graduated from Rockcreek High School in 1946, where he was a member of the band and the 1946 County Tournament winning basketball team. After high school, he farmed with his grandfather, father and brother.
Bev met Jean Gorrell during a youth group event at the Fort Wayne First United Methodist Church in the fall of 1948. They married on March 25, 1951 and lived on the farm in Wells County, where Jean started teaching English and home economics for the Bluffton-Harrison School District. They had a daughter in 1953 and a son in 1957.
In addition to his primary occupation of farming, he worked as an IBEW union electrician for Shambaugh and Sons Electric for over 30 years. He took a four-year sabbatical from electrical work in the late ’60s and early ’70s to serve as field service manager for Mix Mill, Inc., traveling to customers’ and production facilities across the U.S., Canada and Europe.
Bev was very conservation minded, actively incorporating new methods and techniques in his farming and forestry. These included “no-till” planting, constructing waterways and riparian strips, expanding forest acreage, and practicing management guidelines for classified sustainable woodlands. Bev planted new trees every year amounting to more than 14,000 over his lifetime. In 2022 he was nominated for the Charles Deam Award.
Bev was a man of many talents. In 1979, he purchased property on Lake Huron in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and, with the help of his son Eric, built a vacation home of his own design, which included hand hewn beams from one of his razed barns.
Bev enjoyed fishing, woodworking and fixing and building things around the farm. He loved singing, attending opera and playing the piano, and was a voracious reader of non-fiction. In his late 80’s he decided to learn to play the cello and mentored young musicians pursuing classical training. He took pride in his attire which was always stylish and appropriate. He was a man of deep faith and uncompromising integrity and held himself to the highest standards of behavior.
Bev passed away on June 21, 2025. He was preceded in death by his parents, his sister, Jeanette Larmore, his brother, Douglas Blessing, and his wife, H. Jean Blessing (Jan 12, 2020).
He is survived by his daughter, Rebecca (Blessing) White of Peoria, Illinois, his son, Eric Blessing, and daughter-in-law Pamela Blessing of Markle, and three grandchildren, Jeremiah White of Peoria, and Caroline Blessing and Sara Blessing, both of New York, New York.
Visitation will be 3-7 p.m. Friday, July 11 at Thoma/Rich Funeral Home. The funeral will take place at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, July 12 at the First Presbyterian Church in Bluffton.
Memorials can be made to the First Presbyterian Church in Bluffton or the Fort Wayne Philharmonic Youth Orchestras.
Funeral arrangements have been entrusted to the care of the Lemler family of Thoma/Rich, Lemler Funeral Home in Bluffton. Friends can share memories and online condolences wit the family at www.thomarich.com.