She enlisted on the first minute of the first hour of the first day regular U.S. Air Force duty was authorized for women on July 8, 1948.

[1] Blake's active military career began in 1944 when she, a widow, joined her sons in uniform for the United States Army Air Forces.

She closed her desk as a civilian employee at Miami Air Depot and joined the Women's Army Corps when she was notified her oldest son, a B-17 Flying Fortress pilot, had been shot down over Belgium and was reported missing.

Her younger son was quoted as saying that her reason for joining was the hope of helping free a soldier from clerical work to fight, thus speeding the end of the war.

After separation, she worked as a civil service employee at the Veterans Regional Headquarters in Montgomery, Alabama until her death in 1979.