Hazel and Lonzie: Hazel's Story (and extra pictures)

My Mother’s Story

Hazel Lucille Mutzner

Oct. 21, 1927 to Jan. 10, 1990

Hazel told us (her children) a few memories of her life when she was about 62 years old. We wrote it down or taped it. We filled in what she missed or didn’t finish. This has been left in her own words as much as possible.

1928 Hazel and Loretta

I was born October 21, 1927 out in the country near Marine, Illinois. I was the second baby of Irene LuLu Zimmermann and Christian Philipp Mutzner. I had an older sister Loretta. They say I weighed ten pounds or more. I was not a pretty or tiny baby but Grandma Zimmermann (my mother’s mother) said by the time I was a few months old I was a beautiful baby. I had a sister born 15 months later named Lylah Irene and a sister born after Lylah her name was Helen Fay.

1931 Hazel and Loretta

The year I was born Grandma and Grandpa Zimmermann built the big white house on the edge of town in Highland. Before that time, they lived in the country. My mother had a big table in the kitchen. Its legs were made from piano legs. It was very big and heavy. They say my mother was a very good cook. My daddy’s brothers and sisters would come to the farm every weekend on Sunday. It was the depression years and no one had anything, but daddy had food. Mother would fill the big, long wood dining room table full of good food for everyone. My mother also could sew good. One winter my mother needed a winter coat, but we were poor and couldn’t afford a coat for her. She took her old coat completely apart and sewed it back together inside out. Our farmhouse in the country was a very big one. We used one side and kept the other part closed. The bedroom was very big and had two large beds in it. We all slept in this room.

1920 circa Christian Philipp Mutzner - Hazel's father

Christian Philipp Mutzner - Hazel's father

Christian Mutzner on his farm. It belonged to his father before he died.

Irene Lulu Zimmermann - Hazel's mother

Back Left: unknown; Back Right: Irene Zimmermann; Front: Inez Zimmermann
Irene 1905-1932, Inez 1914-1999

Adeline (Lena) Koeler Zimmermann - Irene's mother
Hazel's Grandma Zimmermann

My mother had a brother, Uncle Oliver and a sister, Aunt Inez. Aunt Inez was just 13 years older than I was. Oliver married Aunt Frieda and they had two girls Nina and Doris.

Irene's sister Inez Zimmermann
Hazel's Aunt
She sent all Hazel's children birthday cards with nickels and dimes.

1952 Oliver Zimmermann
Irene's brother

1980 Oliver and Frieda Zimmermann
Irene's brother and Hazel's aunt and uncle

Nina Zimmermann
Oliver and Frieda's oldest daughter
Hazel's cousin

Doris Zimmermann
Oliver and Frieda's youngest daughter
Hazel's cousin

I lived in the country all my baby years. I was a big, fat, robust baby. My older sister and I played together. She was the boss. One time Loretta and I were left in the kitchen while mother and daddy were outside doing the evening chores. Loretta got the bright idea to fill all the empty pots with syrup. So, we poured a little in several pots. We called it fixing supper. When mother and daddy came in from milking the cows that night, they asked us what we were doing and Loretta piped up, “we’re making supper”. My mother wasn’t impressed. Loretta insisted I made her do it. We both ended up with a spanking.

Back Row: 2nd from left, Christian Mutzner
Front Row: Helen, Lylah, Hazel, Loretta

1938 circa Hazel, Loretta, Lylah, Helen

When I was small, we had gone to Grandma Zimmermann’s one night. I fell asleep on the couch. It was an old-fashioned couch and stood tall. I rolled off it and hurt my arm. Grandma insisted it was broken but the rest said no. So, we just went home. I kept crying if they touched my arm, so they decided to take me to the doctor. It was a broken collar bone. It was put into a cast for six weeks. A few days after it was taken off, I was out in the yard and saw some worms thinking they were snakes. I started to run to the house hollering snake, snake. I tripped over the chicken water trough and broke it again. That put my arm into a cast for eight weeks longer. When they finally unwrapped it, Grandma said I was rotting away. But it did fine and I had no more trouble with it.

Back Row 2nd from left: Christian Mutzner
Front Row: Helen, Lylah, Hazel, Loretta

Hazel, Helen, Loretta, Lylah

One time Lylah decided she was going to go to town (Highland) with daddy. He didn’t want to take her. She was about two years old and he was going for plow equipment or something. His car had a tire on the back of it and so Lylah got up there and held on all the way to town. When he got to town and stopped, she got down and walked around to him. He put her in the car and took her back home.

Christian Mutzner

Aunt Inez, Aunt Frieda, and/or Grandma Zimmermann would come to our farmhouse quite a bit to care for us while my mother and father worked with farm chores or in the fields. When Loretta was a baby and Aunt Frieda had Doris, she would take care of the babies. She nursed Doris and then she would pick up Loretta and nurse her. One day we were all taking our naps; Lylah, Helen, and I. Mother wasn’t feeling well so she was laying down with us in one big bed. Grandma Zimmermann tried to wake my mom saying, “wake up I have to go home and get supper. Wake up now Loretta’s bus will be coming”. Grandma shook mother’s arm then said, “Gott im Himmel!” I think it meant Oh, my God in heaven or something like that. Because she discovered my mother was dead. She pushed us girls out of the room. Then she came out too. My mother was buried on my fifth birthday. We were later told that mother tried to give herself an abortion and had bled to death.

After my mother died, daddy sold his farm which had been his fathers. His father died with he was born. My father moved in with my Aunt Freida and Uncle Oliver (my mother’s brother). They lived beside my Grandma Zimmermann. Aunt Frieda and Uncle Oliver had two girls Nina and Doris. Doris was one month older than Loretta and Nina was three years older than Doris. Grandma and Aunt Frieda took care of us together. They cooked together and washed clothes together all was done together. Some nights I slept at Grandma’s and some nights at Aunt Frieda’s. They had one room at Aunt Frieda’s for us. Daddy hauled beer and was gone four or five days at a time. Our room had two large beds for us four girls and daddy when he was home.

Christian's beer truck

My daddy hauled beer to make a living. The kind of beer daddy hauled was Scholtz Old Lager. Between loads, he would get a load of apples or peaches, or watermelons and sell them. Grandpa Zimmermann would set up a sign in his front yard and set the fruit out and sell them. He could sell them while daddy was hauling beer.

Daddy bought a little house behind Grandma’s. Aunt Frieda and Uncle Oliver lived in the very next house. Since we stayed with Grandma and Aunt Frieda and daddy drove the beer truck, he had no use for the house, so he rented it. This area of town was known as White City.

In the springtime Grandma would clean out a little chicken house in her back yard and fix it for us to have a playhouse. There was a grape arbor over the sidewalk in front of the chicken house and we really had lots of fun playing in it. It was close to the garden and we would go to the garden sometimes and get stuff to eat in the playhouse. We would play like we were washing dolly clothes and hang them on the grape arbor to dry. We had a scooter and wagons to play with. There were six of us girls and we really had a good time all day long.

Hazel and the Chicken House

Loretta was always smart in school. Doris and I were not. Loretta was known as a book worm. I was known as the dumb bell. I went to school in Highland with my sister, Loretta, and two cousins, Doris and Nina. We had to walk about a mile to school. One day I was supposed to return a book to the library across town from the school, but I forgot it at school. The girls insisted I go back and get it. I did and turned around to make it back to the other girls. There was some big boy walking along the sidewalk carrying a bass horn. We collided and I cut a large gash in my eyebrow. It bled all over. It really looked bad.

Grandma and Grandpa Zimmermann, Aunt Frieda, and Uncle Oliver would sit in Grandma’s back yard at night and all us kids would play hide and seek. My Grandma always did a lot of canning during the summer: beans, peas, tomatoes, cucumbers, corn, sauerkraut, jellies of all kinds; plum, grape, berry, etc. Aunt Inez would come over and we would all go berry picking together. We would have to sprinkle stuff on our body to keep from getting chigger bites. Every Saturday during the summer we went to town and got groceries with Inez, Frieda, and Grandma Zimmerman.

Hazel

I had growing pains in my legs. All of us girls did. Grandma Zimmermann would rub my legs. They were so bad. If I got it before bedtime, Grandma would open the oven and I’d prop my leg on the door for warmth.

One year at Christmas time after Aunt Inez had married Uncle Alvin, Grandma and Aunt Freida’s family and all four of us sisters were invited to Aunt Inez’s house. This was a rare and wonderous occasion. She lived in White City at the time, behind Grandma’s. I remember eating popcorn and having a good time when everyone decided they heard something upstairs, so we all trooped up to the bedroom and down from the attic came Santa Claus in full red costume. I was never told for certain, but I believe it was Uncle Alvin under the suit. Each girl received a present from Santa. The evening held one of the most exciting moments of my childhood.

Aunt Inez had no children when I was a young child and it seems she instigated much of the special occasions. On the fourth of July we would all go to Highland Park where they had games all afternoon. In the evening Aunt Inez would gather us all up (Nina, Doris, Loretta, me, Lylah, and Helen) and we would sit on a blanket on a hill and watch the fireworks. When I was little, I found candy upstairs in Aunt Inez’s house. I would always sneak up there to eat it. Aunt Inez never said anything about it although I’m sure she knew.

Daddy married a woman from Pennsylvania. Her name was Olive Eleanor Allen. She was a big woman, not so fat, just tall and robust and she had red hair. Grandma and all the rest of the family liked to call her the big red head. When daddy got remarried, we lived in Highland behind Grandma Zimmermann’s house. We lived there a couple of months and then we moved to East Alton. We rented a five room house on Broadway.

I was nine when he remarried. We really missed getting to stay at Grandma Zimmermann’s house. When I was little, I wet the bed. My daddy would get up real early and take my wet sheets and hang them down by the furnace to dry before my stepmother would find out. In the summer at Grandma’s, she would give us girls a catalogue to cut out paper dolls. We would spend days cutting dolls and furniture. We would take some home to daddy’s house and my stepmother, the red head, would not allow us to play with them. So, I would hide them under the newspaper lining of my dresser drawer. If she found them, she would always throw them away. This made us sad for a couple of days. We could spend hours and hours playing with paper dolls. Every time we saw a pretty woman or a pretty girl we would cut it out. It was always cool in Grandma’s basement. That is where we spent a lot of our summer.

Helen, Hazel, Lylah, and Loretta

I always loved “little ones” or babies. I was called, “the little mother”. That really made me happy. At night I remember laying on the bed looking at the sky. It was so very pretty. Daddy had a rooster that he teased when we lived on Ohio Street. We could hardly hunt Easter eggs because it would peck us. Daddy would have to stand and watch us when we hunted Easter eggs. Aunt Inez would come and take us home with her to Grandma Zimmermann’s for special times like Christmas and several weeks in the summer. We loved Grandma Zimmermann very much because she was always there when we wanted something. Grandma Zimmermann made us clothes for school. I remember a salmon-colored dress made in the princess style and buttoned all the way down the front. The buttons were little white ducks and it had about three rows of white bric-a-brac trimming on the bottom of the skirt. It was the most beautiful dress I ever could own. She used to make us four or five dresses a piece for school each year.

1942 Helen and Hazel

Grandma Zimmermann taught me how to sew and embroidery. I embroidered all the blocks for a quilt and in the winter, Grandma quilted it for me. There were enough squares for a large quilt and a baby quilt. The blocks were made with a sunbonnet pattern.

1943 Helen Mutzner 11 years old

In the spring of 1942, I met your daddy, he was a soldier boy who was stationed at the USO in East Alton, Illinois next to the railroad tracks that went right through East Alton. I was going to the library with Lylah. I asked him if he would like to go to the library with me and he said yes. We went to the library. We did this off and on several times. We stayed till about 9:00 pm every time and he would walk us home. I was 15 and Lylah was 13. I could only go to the library if I walked with Lylah. The next thing I knew we were real friendly and I kind of liked him and I told him how lonely I was and how hateful my stepmother was, and how I longed and needed to be loved by someone. After several hours it would be time to go home. All we did at the library was sit and talk. Finally, he asked me if I would marry him, right there at the library with Lylah with us. We made no specific plans. We started to go home. All three walking home we went across the subway sidewalk and as we started to come out the other end, we met the Big Red Head. She was real mad. She walked all the way home with us and probably even gave us a swat every once in a while. When we got home, daddy was home and we all talked. They agreed that we could write letters, but we were not to think of getting married. We agreed to this.

1942 Hazel 14 years old

When summer came, mother and daddy thought I should live with Aunt Inez and get a job in Highland. They thought this would prevent me from seeing your daddy. So, I lived with Aunt Inez all summer. Your daddy wrote to tell me that he was coming to see me during his next furlough. I was planning for his visit. The night he came, I didn’t know exactly what time he was coming, and I went to the show with all the girls; all my sisters, Nina, Doris, and Aunt Inez. Your daddy went to the show also and called for Hazel Mutzner. I went out to see who it was. Of course, it was him and we didn’t go back in. We walked around town and talked. No one knew where we were. They were worried and getting madder and madder. It wasn’t a very nice thing to do, but that’s what we did. When we got tired, we went home. Aunt Inez was really mad. I thought the red head was bad, well, you should have heard Aunt Inez and Uncle Alvin. Here I was staying at her house and I was cutting up like that! That was terrible. I had to pack my bags quick like and get home to my daddy. I couldn’t stay at her house anymore. I went home and went back to school.

Your daddy had given me money when I went to Aunt Inez’s just in case I needed it to run away. I could go to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri or Georgia which ever one I wanted to go to. I thought for sure I was going to need it after that, but I didn’t. I had written a letter to put with the money to let him know I hadn’t needed the money and that we couldn’t run away and get married. I had put it up and was saving it. I had to be on the sly, so I didn’t have a chance to mail it yet. When I was back in East Alton they found my money and letter and thought it was really great that I had not used it to run away.

I didn’t see him anymore. He went back to Fort Leonard Wood. We continued to write. One day when I got home from school, your daddy was on furlough and he was there waiting for me with my parents. We all talked very friendly and nice and we decided that we wanted to go to the show that night. So, everyone went to the show in the same car; daddy, my sisters, your daddy, and me. I had just turned 15 at this time. Your daddy and I stayed outside on the porch for a while after everyone went inside. He said that the next morning, he would come and get me and we’d get married. So that morning, I got ready for school and waited and waited for him. He finally came. He told my daddy we were going to get married. Daddy was really mad. He said he guessed he wouldn’t be able to stop us, so he gave his blessing, but said don’t ever come back to this house again. I packed a few clothes in my little suitcase and we left.

1943 Hazel Crawford

We went to a bus station in Alton and waited for a bus to St. Louis so we could then catch a bus to Waycross, Georgia. It took us several days and nights to get there. We went to his Aunt’s house in Waycross and got cleaned up and were trying to find a place to get married. It was Armistice Day, November 11, 1942 and every place was closed. There was a big parade with soldiers from the air force and navy bases, and army equipment everywhere. We went to the courthouse. They had to call a judge to come in and marry us. We had witnesses that were standing in the hall, but we didn’t know them.

Then we caught a bus to Blackshear. When we got there your daddy’s mom was real happy to see me and was nice to me. I liked staying there, but it wasn’t like home. As soon as he dropped me off, your daddy went to San Luis Obispo, California. He stayed there for a long time.

Your daddy’s brother, Carl, was just a little older than I was and his sister, Scrap, was just a little younger. There was maybe 16 months between us three. We walked to school together. Scrap always had to make the breakfast, so we decided that we’d divide it up. She’d make breakfast one week and I’d make it the next. One day I was trying to make biscuits for breakfast. I was slower than Scrap and couldn’t do the things she could do. When breakfast was just about done, Grandpa Crawford came in and wanted to wake Scrap up to finish it because I was taking too long. I asked if I could please try to finish.

They ate different things than what I was used to. They made a lot of biscuits. I had never had biscuits like that in my life. They had grits too. They had one loaf of white bread a week, on Saturday and it wouldn’t last through the supper meal. I’d always help, whatever was going on. I was right there doing what the other kids were doing. There were wash days and butcher days. Everything was different to me. I tried to live the way they lived. It was all very strange to me. On Saturdays they got groceries. We’d go to the show on Saturdays. Scrap and I were buddies. Everyone said Scrap was mean and feisty, but I liked her. I always let her have her way. We got along fine.

In January, I went to East Alton to visit my family. I had money which I never had before. When I got to the house, I looked in the window and they were all inside. My daddy and mother were reading the paper and my sisters were doing the dishes. They looked like they were doing great. I wasn’t sure that I should intrude. I was worried but finally decided that I’d come this far so I knocked. Daddy opened the door and he and everyone were so glad to see me. After a visit, I caught a bus and went back to Georgia to go back to school.

Hazel and Lonzie, San Luis Obispo, CA

As soon as I got back, there was a telegram and money waiting for me to catch a train to go San Luis Obispo, CA. Your daddy was going to be shipped out and wanted me to come. I went on a train by myself. It took a week to get there. I was 15 and your daddy was 21. In San Luis Obispo we stayed in a house that was shared. We had an apartment upstairs. I didn’t see anyone else. It was only one room big enough for a single bed and chests of drawers and that was it. You could hardly turn around. Your daddy went to camp every day. I got a job in the commissary. I got to eat there sometimes too. We ate all our meals out since we didn’t have a kitchen. The people at my job kept telling me I had to bring in my social security card. I didn’t know how to get one. I hoped they’d forget, but they didn’t. One day the man asked me if maybe I didn’t have one. I said no I didn’t and I didn’t know how to get one. He said that was easy. He brought me some papers to fill out and I got my social security number. I had a job and a paycheck. I was very young compared to the other wives. I was only 15 but I had permission from my daddy. I stayed there all summer and, in the fall. I wanted a wedding picture. For the picture, your daddy wanted to look important so he “borrowed” an officers uniform from a dry cleaners. He did return it afterwards.

1944, Hazel and Larry Keith Crawford

Your daddy was shipped out so I went home. I had a baby boy born January 24, 1944. At the time he was born, I was living with my daddy in his house in East Alton with my three sisters and stepmother. Your daddy was in the Philippine Islands. My mother’s sister (Inez) had been over that day. She was supposed to be able to tell the sex of the baby by the way you carried it. She looked at my tummy and said oh, you’re so low you’re almost dragging. You are going to have a girl. Later that night my pains got harder and harder. By 8:15 the next morning, I had a baby boy. He was very special. My daddy was a very proud Grandpa. I was so proud of him and determined to raise him. My sisters were all proud of him too. He was one small, spoiled baby boy. He took the bottle every three hours. Larry was born premature. He was born at seven months. He weighed 3 pounds 15 ounces at birth. I named him Larry Keith Crawford. He gained weight slowly. Larry was so small he had to stay in the incubator. While he was in the hospital, daddy took me to the store to buy material to make some clothes for him. They were so small they’d fit a little baby doll. He was in the hospital about six weeks. While he was in the hospital, daddy didn’t take me to see him very often. The hospital had told my daddy I shouldn’t get too attached to Larry.

Hazel and Larry

One Sunday a nurse called and told us we better come in to see him. We weren’t sure if he would live or not. Daddy and I went together. Larry was panting for breath. He looked like he was dying. But after that day he started getting stronger.

Hazel and Larry

One day we got to take him home. My daddy was so proud because he had all girls. He called him “My Little Man”. He was the most exciting thing our family had ever seen. Everyone was at my side watching as I cared for him in case, I made a mistake. I sent pictures of him to your daddy. He was so proud of him. He told everyone he had a baby boy. Any baby that was a boy was a good baby to the soldier boys.

In Larry’s baby book it lists Larry’s travel as:

July 1, 1944 - We went to Georgia

Nov. 23, 1944 - We went to Douglas, Georgia

Dec. 18 - Jan. 13, 1944/45 - Mom worked at Shipyard and I stayed with Mrs. Altman and Mrs. Dixon.

Feb. 1945 - We went to Illinois

March 1945 - We went to Georgia

March 10, 1945 - In a letter Lonzie wrote to his mother, it states that he is in a hospital in the West Indies.

1944/45 Larry's baby book. Hazel was a Rosy the Riveter!

1945: Hazel, Larry, and Lonzie

One day the war was over (September 2, 1945). What an exciting time that was. Your daddy, me, and Larry were all living in Georgia. Your daddy could not find a job. My daddy came down to Georgia to visit us. We went back to Illinois with him. Your daddy got a job at the Western Cartridge Company and we settled down to just living. It was wonderful. Your daddy’s brother, Carl and Aunt Kissie lived with us for a while. After their son Eddie was born, they moved to Georgia.

1946, Front Row: Christian, Larry, Olive,
Middle Row: Jim Sayler (Loretta's husband), Loretta, Helen
Back Row: Hazel, Lylah

We had a baby girl and named her Joyce Jean. She was born in Alton Memorial Hospital on May 10, 1946. All the babies in the nursery at that time died from an infectious disease. Because Joyce was kept separate in an incubator, she lived the longest. She made it home but became ill and died on May 25,1946.

1948 Larry and Hazel

Two years later, on December 20, 1948 we had a baby girl, Barbara Louise. She was born at Alton Memorial Hospital. We lived in East Alton until Barbara was five months old. Then your daddy, me, Larry, and Barbara all moved to Georgia. We lived “across the swamp”. Grandma Crawford was close to Barbara. She thought I kept Barbara looking so nice, neat, and clean in her little dresses. Your daddy farmed tobacco. His whole tobacco crop burned in a barn fire.

1949 Hazel and Barbara

1949 Hazel, Barbara, Lonzie, Larry

1953 Larry and Barbara

1951 circa Larry

Larry

We moved to Highland, Illinois when Barbara was four years old. In Highland we lived in a little house with an outdoor john. We next moved to a different rental property in the country. That summer of 1954 when I was pregnant, a heat and drought record was set. Your daddy got a job at Laclede Steel Mill in Alton. The Steel Mill closed for a few days in the summer of 1954 because it was so hot 107 – 118 degrees. I mean it was hot!

We had a baby girl, Donna Fay on August 15,1954 at Highland Hospital. We named her after a neighbor girl that Barbara played with all the time. Her name was Donna Teems. Our home was burned to the ground on November 2 when Donna was two and a half months old. Barbara said she likes to say she saved everyone because her and daddy were the only ones up. She was playing paper dolls on the floor... your daddy was shaving… Barbara saw smoke under the kitchen door and alerted your daddy. The neighbors all pitched in and by night fall we had clothes, dishes, furniture, etc. The neighbors were so kind to us and I was so very grateful. We had only moved there about two weeks before this, so the neighbors didn’t even know us very well. The neighbors called my daddy and he called my sister Helen. After that, we all (your daddy, me, Larry, Barbara, and Donna) moved in with Helen and her husband, Elvin Buford, in Edwardsville, IL. We stayed with them until we found a place to rent.

1954 Donna

1955 Hazel and Donna Fay Crawford

For about a month we lived on Buena Vista on Milton Road. In March of 1955 we bought a house at 21 S. Williams Street in Cottage Hills, IL. We got our first TV set about 1955. It really was wonderful to have a TV set. Our neighbor, Mrs. Grable had two girls, Betty and Sue. They liked to come over and play. I was called mother of the street. We had a breeze way between the garage and utility room. In this breeze way we had a lot of stuff to play with and old clothes to dress in.

1956 Hazel, Donna, Barbara, Larry, Lonzie

1956 Barbara and Grandma Crawford

1956 Barbara, Randy and Beverly Hock
Cousins

1957 Barbara with dark hair and Sayler cousins

We had another girl, Patricia Lou on April 1, 1958. She was born at 5 am and weighed five pounds. Barbara helped me give Patti a bath on a pillow on the table, it was just the two of us.

1959 Donna, Larry, Hazel, Patti, Barbara, Lonzie

1961 Larry, Barbara, Christopher Beal, Patti, Donna

Lonzie and Larry. In this picture I see a lot of the Mutzner side of the family in Larry's face.

1958 Donna and Patti

1958 Patricia Lou Crawford

1959 Patti, Donna, and Barb

1959 Barb, Patti, Donna

1958 Patti and Donna

1958 Donna, Patti, Barb

1959 Patti, Hazel, Donna

We had a baby boy, Christopher Beal on May 23, 1960. Barbara ran home from school because she somehow knew she had a new baby there! Mrs. Grable gave Chris his first bath.

*** This is the end of mom's story in her own words. ***

1963 Chris and Hazel

STUFF MOM SAID:

- Open the door Richard (must be sung)

- Practice makes perfect

- As all get-out

- Spritzing (bacon splatter)

- Soodling (play in water puddle)

- If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all

- You don't have to tell everything you know

- Snooty

- Squeeze the puddin' out of you

Stuff I Remember About My Mother:

Hazel was an introvert. She told us to treat others as you would want to be treated yourself. She was understanding and had empathy for others. She loved and cared for her children and grandchildren. She didn't cuss or drink (she had one drink at Barb's wedding reception and dad was so mad he left her in Breeze). She worked in the laundry at Alton Memorial Hospital for 15 years and was a cook at Beverly Farms for five years. She was artistic and had many interests, including gardening, sewing, embroidery, crocheting, Rubik’s cube, lottery numbers, and raising guppy fish. She made really beautiful decorated cakes. She made Barbie doll birthday cakes for her grand daughters and darling Easter Bunny 3D cakes. I remember eating spoonful's of icing. She was particularly good at math and she could draw. She could identify birds by their chirps. She made delicious stuffing and Jewish Coffee Cake. She loved Christmas and always made it magical for her children.

****** LETTER ******

January 5, 1951

Dear Helen and Elven,

I received your letter and will try and answer if I can. We are all OK except Larry and Barbara have bad colds. Hope you are feeling better by this time.

Well, I guess I better take this time to thank you for the blue jeans for Christmas. You know they are really something I needed bad. The shirt is quite a bit to big but it’s pretty. I will wear it any way. Lonzie said he might ___________ it some time.

Well, I really don’t know what you sent Larry and Barbara but they got so much. I and Lonzie didn’t get them much. They got a big box from Loretta, Grandma Zimmermann, Doris, Frieda, and Aunt Inez and Lylah. Larry was terribly excited the night before he woke up about 2 o’clock and called mama, is it time to get up yet!! And when morning came, he was up about the time Lonzie was and then you ought to have seen him and Barbara. Here is what they got if you already don’t know.

Barbara	Barbara	Larry	Larry
Doll buggy	Santa clause doll	Tractor and parts	pajamas
Doll bed	2 pair pajamas	Dump truck	Red shirt
Rocking chair	1 red shirt	Scoop shovels	White sweater
2 ironing boards	1 pr blue jeans	Cowboy suit	Belt
2 irons	3 ribbons	Holster and gun	Dominos
Wash tub	2 pr socks	Cap guns	Bingo game
Clothes line/pins	2 pr under pants	Pen/pencil set	Rocking chair
Doll	Dress material	2 story books	Orange sweater
Teddy bear	Pair of shoes	2 color books	Red & Grn shirt
		Basketball set

Got enough to get excited over. Mother and Daddy sent so much. Loretta sent Barbara an ironing board and iron. It stands up pretty tall and it’s red metal. The iron has a string on it with a rubber stub on the end to wet and stick on the

ironing board to act like it’s plugged in. It’s real cute and Barbara really likes it fine. Also, she looks cute in her red shirt and blue pants. And it’s real cute to see her push the doll carriage. Larry and her have a little puppy. She puts it in the carriage and pushes it around. Larry can’t seem to decide on a name for his dog. It’s part German Police and part Shepard. I think if it gets big it may be a good watch dog. Don’t you think?

We have our tobacco bed planted now. And Lonzie has started plowing up cotton stalks. Then he starts turning ground. He has so much to do; he has to build a smoke house, water shelf (Jonny also) clean up the brush around the house here, and turn all the ground. He doesn’t know what to do first.

Our new address is R# 1, Patterson, GA.

I like this new place fine. All though we are smothered under with work. I don’t think we will ever get through. They started building on our tobacco barn.

I must stop and get supper. I guess Lonzie and all are just raring for it. I put up Barbara’s hair this afternoon and believe it or not it’s still up. Lonzie’s sister, the one they call Sister, she had a baby girl December 30 on Lonzie’s birthday. Gene was home for Christmas. His boy is big but can’t walk yet. It has dark curly hair.

Had a letter from Loretta today. She is fine. She was home for Christmas. She wrote it on December 31. Well, I must sign off for now.

With all my love your sister,

Hazel and Family