Donald Earl Wetzel

WETZEL, Donald Earl, writer, humanist and anti-war activist, died peacefully on Thursday, June 21, 2007. He was born June 8, 1921 in Bedford Hills, NY. Following the death of his mother when he was 13, he was separated from his family of origin and moved to a relative's farm in rural Alabama, where he developed a deep love of nature. He moved often between the South and the American West, ultimately making his home in Arizona. He was author of eight published novels, several humor pieces and countless articles, poems and essays. His first novel, A Wreath and a Curse, was adapted in the 1950s to a Broadway play, All Summer Long. He received a Guggeheim fellowship and while living in rural Alabama wrote two of his novels, The Rain and the Fire and the Will of God, and The Lost Skiff, both about a young man growing up in the woods of the rural south. A New York Times review of The Lost Skiff said, "Huckelberry Finn is alive and well on an Alabama River," noting that in this book about a young man searching for a lost boat, the discoveries really "concern the juices of life which bubble up joyfully along the river banks and flow warmly in his own veins." He is survived by four children: two daughters,, Naomi McCoy of Tucson, AZ and Mia Manifold of Fairhope, AL and two sons, David Wetzel of Daphne, AL and Joseph Wetzel of Tucson, AZ; 11 grandchildren and one great-grandchild. Family and friends are invited to celebrate his life on Saturday, July 7th at the Copper Queen Hotel Saloon in Bisbee, AZ beginning at 3:00 p.m. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to The Friends of the Copper Queen Library, P.O. Box 1857, Bisbee, AZ 85603. Please note on the check and the envelope, "in celebration of Donald Wetzel." Arrangements by VALLEY FUNERAL HOMES.