sentences:  His father, Fred J. Blanding, Sr., died while Blanding was a child.Blanding moved to Michigan with his mother, who was a Michigan native.At the time of the 1900 United States Census, Blanding was 12 years old and living on a farm in Bloomfield Township, Oakland County, Michigan, with his mother Emma Blanding, grandparents George W. and Jane (Clendenning) Sly, and sister Charlotte.