The Peirce Family Blog: 2012

Hazel L. Wilcox

Eulogy

Hazel Lottie Doering was born in Manhattan Burroughs Hospital in New York City on March 29, 1931. She was the only child of Bill and Lottie Doering. As a young child they lived across the street from Central Park which became Hazel’s playground. As an only child she was adored by her father and he spared no expense in providing Hazel with music lessons and dancing lessons. Hazel inherited her musical talents from her father who played the piano and organ and loved opera and at one time pursued a career in singing. Bill would buy exquisite clothes for Lottie and Hazel and they would go out, all decked up, for nights on Broadway. She remembers the salesman from Utah Woolen Mills coming to their home to present his line from which selections were made. Matching shoes, handbag, hat and gloves were a must for each outfit. In New York Hazel developed a love of Broadway musicals. Her father loved the theatre and as a family they would go to Radio City Music Hall and see the Rockets dance and see movies. It was there that Hazel saw the first colored musicals - “Mikado” with Kenny Baker and “The Wizard of Oz” with Judy Garland. Her father also indulged her mother’s love for animals so they always had dogs, cats, rabbits, ducks, a skunk (de-fumed of course) and an odd assortment of other’s of God’s creatures. In fact, when Hazel was asked to babysit she would often tell people that she loved puppies, but not babies and she was more than happy to help someone with their animals. Her father’s engineering career took them across the country several times and they moved from New York to California, to Utah, back to New York and finally to Utah. When the family moved to Palo Alto, Hazel graduated from Sequoia Union High School in Redwood City where she was president of the sequoia “Players” which was a theatre group. She had a flair for the dramatic and a beautiful singing voice. She also took many classes in sewing and home economics and became an accomplished seamstress and won many awards for her work. Her father, Bill, was an engineer and Hazel was so proud of his inventions. When she was 6 and living in New York they would go down into the subway and she would put her penny in the machine and tell the people around her “My daddy built this”. While living in Fresno he designed the first vending machine to dispense soda bottles and a cherry pitting machine for S&W foods that was the most accurate machine ever built – only one pit in 3,000 cherries. It was said of Bill that he was one of the few men who could design a machine on paper and then go into the shop and build it. Hazel inherited his artistic genius and talent for drawing and could draw, sketch or paint anything on the spot. She was so creative and her talents in sewing and art came together as she designed and created dolls. She has sewn dolls for her children and grandchildren complete with outfits, shoes and jewelry.

After high school she attended BYU and the LDS business college and worked at KSL television. Hazel was a campus beauty at BYU and was nominated for several beauty pageants. She was nominated for the Banyan Queen contest and was runner up for Belle of the Y. In the school newspaper “The Brigham Young Universe” it reads “Perfection is what the Belle of the Y is supposed to represent and if cooking ability, dancing ability, talent, beauty and popularity are any indications she’s right on top. Hazel was of course worthy of the nomination and when Dick had met her briefly at BYU, with her beautiful long flowing black hair and remarkable beauty he was not brave enough to ask her out. Another deterrent was that Hazel was dating the quarterback of the BYU Football Team at the time.

After Dick’s mission to Sweden and 4 years later, he found himself headed to the army’s meat packing facility in Salt Lake City, Utah. He was a meat inspector for the army quartermaster corps, wielding a thermometer as his most dangerous weapon. One night Hazel was asked by her friends to go to the Closing Social Institute Dance at the University of Utah. She did not want to go but finally relented and went with her friends. It was there that Dick saw Hazel again. He remembered her name from fours years earlier and she remembered his. That night Dick had taken another date to the dance who happened to be Miss Utah. When he saw Hazel he got one of his other buddies to escort Miss Utah home and spent the balance of the evening with Hazel. They went to Snelgroves ice cream after the dance. At the end of the night he told her that he would love to take her out again, but that he didn’t have any money, so she invited him over for dinner and to listen to records on Wednesday night. That night she told her beloved dad Bill that she was going to get married. Since Hazel describes her father as a ultra conservative, one of the first remarks he made when he met Dick was that he liked his politics.

They spent the entire day on Saturday at KSL TV and 2 days later, on Monday, Dick walked into the station and leaned over the desk where Hazel was working – kissed her on the cheek – and said “Let’s get married” to which Hazel replied “what took you so long”. In her own words – “That was the start of the whole rigamarole” .They were engaged within a week. The week after that they attended a family dinner in Grantsville, UT where the Wilcox clan resided with more food, desserts, people and craziness than Hazel had ever seen. She didn't’ say a word on the ride home. They were married within 3 months and after Dick was discharged from the army they settled in Huntington Park, CA, where remainder of the extended Wilcox clan lived - nearly all on the same street. Lydia was born in 1957 when they lived in Huntington Park and Mallory was born at Stanford hospital in 1958 after they moved to Los Altos. They moved back to Los Angeles and later settled in San Marino where David was born in 1967 in Pasadena. As Hazel says “He was a surprise package and enjoyed by all”.

The family moved to Bellevue, Washington in 1970 and then to Moraga in 1975. Dick was in the foundations business – not the concrete kind of foundations but the bra and underwear kind and he was always on the road peddling underwear and lingerie for companies like Maidenform and Formfit Rogers. While living in Moraga they opened up their own intimate apparel shop in San Leandro called Bonnies, a second shop in Broadway plaza and a third shop in Santa Rosa called Marga’s, which Dick still operates today. They offered the best custom fit in town – complete with personal alterations by Hazel.

Hazel had many callings in the church that involved primary singing time and playing the piano. It suited her gifts and being the artistic and creative person that she was, she spent hours preparing visual aids for singing time, many of which she has passed on to Mallory and Lydia to use.

Hazel also loved to dance. In fact at the height of the Michael Jackson moonwalk craze, she watched the videos over and over so she could moonwalk at the ward talent show, which she did to perfection. Dick and Hazel cut quite the rug because together they could swing, waltz, tango and jitterbug.

Along with raising 3 kids Hazel supported her children in music lessons, dance lessons, lots of sports, and devoted herself to making others happy. Hazel and Dick made countless sacrifices helping family members and friends, some through very sad and difficult experiences, taking in family members, helping people through romantic heartbreak and a bit of matchmaking. It was Hazel’s idea to, set up Dian Barnes (Clo’s daughter) and Mike Harries on a blind date because she knew they were the perfect couple. It was also her idea to take Mike out to dinner and abandon him at the restaurant where Dian was a hostess so she would have to take him home. They were married in the Oakland Temple a few short months later.

Hazel was kind, creative, gentle, humble and had infinite patience. She now finds her place at the side of her beloved Daddy Bill. I know that this is true. I think this is best expressed in these words from her grandson Gregor who is on missions in Brazil. Upon hearing of Hazel’s passing he writes “Death plays a big role in the plan of salvation and when you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. At some point in everyone’s life a loved one will pass away and they will find a true desire to know if God really exists and they will look for the truth. Without death nobody would have a desire to humble themselves before God. Relationships are the most important things that we have. Our relationship with God, with each other, and with ourselves. God knew that in these relationships we would learn sorrow, patience, love, joy...the list goes on. Our relationships were not meant to be broken. God made it so they would last into the eternities. I don’t know why grandma passed away now, but it effects our desires, especially mine to work a little harder and to be a little better in standing uprightly before god.

I too hope that we will one day be worthy to stand by her side in the presence of our Father in Heaven.