Hazel E. Spaven (Pierce)

Hazel Pierce Spaven

  9/12/1915 – 5/16/2014

Hazel E. Pierce was born in her grandparents’ home in Troy, Pennsylvania to Mary E. Smith and Leslie Abner Pierce.  She and her brothers Kenneth and Glenn grew up in several small towns near Elmira, New York.  Hazel graduated with honors from Elmira Free Academy in 1933 and received a secretarial degree from Elmira Business Institute in 1935.  She worked in Elmira as a secretary for a varnish company and then at Remington Rand, where she met Lawrence Spaven, an engineer and amateur photographer.  They were married on June 29, 1941 at Centenary Methodist Church with Rev. Edgar O. Spaven, Lawrence’s father, officiating.

After the birth of their two girls, Susan and Virginia, the family moved to Irondequoit, a suburb of Rochester, New York, where Lawrence worked as an engineer at Eastman Kodak and taught photography.  Hazel was a homemaker, Girl Scout leader and active in Seneca Methodist Church where she served on the board.  In the early 1950’s the family built a cottage on Keuka Lake in the Finger Lakes where they spent summers, treating friends and family to picnics and water sports for forty years.  She and Lawrence also enjoyed square and round dancing and taught square dance lessons in Newark, NY after he became a caller.

When the girls were older teens, Hazel worked as a secretary in the church office and later as secretary to the president of Colgate Rochester Divinity School.  Upon retirement, Hazel and Lawrence moved to Sun City, Arizona, continuing to summer at Keuka Lake.  In Sun City they both learned to play the organ and taught square dancing at Willowbrook United Methodist Church.  After Lawrence’s death in 1998, Hazel lived at Sierra Winds in Peoria, AZ for nine years, then moved with daughter Ginny to Montrose, Colorado.  Hazel spent her last five years at Sunrise Creek in Montrose in assisted living and memory care.

Hazel Spaven is best known for her poetry.  She had always enjoyed solving crossword puzzles and double crostics.  During her retirement years, she channeled her love of words, her wit and wisdom into poems about family life, the environment, current events and many other subjects. She self-published three collections of her poems: ‘Random Rhymes’, ‘Earth and Sky and A Touch of Wry’ and ‘Heaven Days!’.  Her poems often appeared in the Sun City daily newspaper and the Sierra Winds newsletter, and she was awarded several prizes by the Arizona State Poetry Society.  She often gave readings of her poems and was honored to be a member of the American Pen Women. 

One of her favorite short poems is titled “A New Wrinkle”:

                        For each thing learned we all sustain

                                     a tiny wrinkle in our brain.

                         I only hope they’re keeping pace

                                     with those appearing on my face.

Hazel was preceded in death by her husband, Lawrence Milner Spaven; her brothers and their wives: Kenneth and Irene Hunter Pierce, Glenn and Grace Spaven Pierce; and her nephew Norman Pierce.  She is survived by her daughters and their husbands:  Susan M. Spaven and Daniel Neagley of Albuquerque, NM, and Virginia M. Spaven and Nick Hoppner of Montrose, CO; niece Linda Pierce of Cleveland, TN; nephew and wife Raymond and Shirley Pierce, also of Cleveland, TN; Norman Pierce’s wife Cheryl Pierce of Keuka Park, NY; as well as several grand nieces and nephews.

A memorial service celebrating Hazel’s life will be held at the Crippin Funeral Home chapel on Main Street in Montrose, CO on Saturday, May 31, 2014 at 2:00 PM.  In lieu of flowers, the family suggests contributions to the Alzheimer’s Association Colorado Chapter, 455 Sherman Street, Suite 500, Denver CO, 80203, or Hope West Hospice Care Center, 3090 North 12th Street, #B, Grand Junction, CO 81506.