Background
Blythe was born as one of nine children to William Jefferson Blythe, Senior (1884–1935), a poor farmer in Sherman, Texas, and his wife, the former Lou Birchie Ayers (1893–1946).
Blythe was born as one of nine children to William Jefferson Blythe, Senior (1884–1935), a poor farmer in Sherman, Texas, and his wife, the former Lou Birchie Ayers (1893–1946).
Blythe shipped out for military service during the Second World War, and was stationed in Egypt and Italy. He worked in a motor pool repairing jeeps and tanks. Shortly after he returned, the two of them bought a house in Chicago.
Blythe moved there while Virginia stayed behind in Hope due to her pregnancy.
In Chicago, Blythe returned to his old job as a traveling salesman for the Manbee Equipment Company, which repaired heavy machinery. On May 17, 1946, while traveling from Chicago, Illinois, to Hope, Arkansas, Blythe lost control of his 1942 Buick on United States. Route 60 outside of Sikeston, Missouri, after one of his tires blew out.
He survived the accident after being thrown from the car but drowned in a drainage ditch as he tried to pull his way out of the three feet of water that covered the ground in the ditch. Blythe was buried at Rose Hill Cemetery in Hope, Hempstead County, Arkansas.
In 1994, Virginia was interred beside him.
In Clinton"s 2004 autobiography, My Life, the elder Blythe was extensively mentioned including a visit that Clinton made to the site where his father drowned.