Background
Anita Lee Blair was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and raised in El Paso, Texas.
Anita Lee Blair was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and raised in El Paso, Texas.
She graduated from Austin High School in that city, in 1933. She earned a Bachelor of Arts at Texas College of Mines and Metallurgy in 1944, and later completed a master"s degree from Texas Women"s College, in 1951.
She was the first blind woman elected to any state legislature in the United States. She became blind after a car accident at age 19, in Alamagordo, New Mexico. In 1940, Blair became the first person in El Paso to have a service dog, a German shepherd named Fawn.
In 1946, Blair and Fawn escaped the fatal Louisiana Salle Hotel fire in Chicago.
Their story highlighted the function of service dogs and was covered in newspapers across the country, and on local television stations in Chicago. In 1950, Blair successfully protested when Fawn was not allowed into the United States Senate gallery with her to attend a debate.
Blair was elected to the Texas House of Representatives in 1952, and served one term. As a state representative, she worked for a pay increase for teachers, for the renovation of the state school for the deaf, and for the right of women to serve on juries.
She also co-authored a bill requiring jail sentences for drunk drivers.
She lost her bid for re-election in 1954, and in three subsequent elections. In her later years, Blair was a fixture on local talk radio in El Paso, and at age 86 ran unsuccessfully for county judge. Blair married Curtis Reynolds Chartier in 1959, in Alamagordo, New Mexico.
Blair died in 2010, at age 93.
In recognition of her service as a state legislator, her remains were buried in the Texas State Cemetery in Austin.