Hazel Spitze

URBANA – Hazel Taylor Spitze, 86, of 1406 S. Vine St., Urbana, IL 61801, died Saturday, August 22, 2009, in her husband's arms at their Urbana home.

Hazel is the daughter of Manila Suggs Taylor and Alfred Watson Taylor. She is survived by her husband, Robert Spitze; daughter Glenna Spitze (and Paul Nance) of Albany, N.Y.; son Ken Spitze (and Jenny Ingram) of Carrollton, Ga.; grandson Christopher Franklin; sisters Gladys Price and Katheryn Wilson; and brother Alfred Taylor (and Paula).

She was predeceased by granddaughter Megan Spitze.

Born on Aug. 23, 1922, Hazel spent her early years in DeQueen, Ark. Hazel's interest in teaching developed early and grew throughout her life. As a child, she would gather all the neighborhood kids to her front-porch steps and keep them engaged as their teacher. Her high school home-economics teacher further nourished this interest and was one of Hazel's early favorites. When Hazel was in her sophomore year at DeQueen public schools, her mother, an unusually dedicated and entrepreneurial woman who had never been able to complete high school, decided that if Hazel and the other children were to go to college, they would have to move to a college town. She asked where Hazel wanted to go, and she quickly replied, "I want to go to the University of Arkansas," the premier land-grant university in Arkansas.

As soon as arrangements were possible, in the midst of the Great Depression, the Taylor family of four children, two parents, and associated household items, such as a kerosene stove, were on their way about 200 miles up a dirt road across Arkansas to Fayetteville. The whole family dug in, cleaning and reclaiming an old abandoned house on the hillside to pay for a couple of months' rent. The industrious parents worked at assorted jobs as the children pursued an improved high school education, eventually resulting in college degrees for each.

Hazel blossomed in the university environment, completing her B.S. degree in home economics from the University of Arkansas in 1943 with interests in nutrition, child development, and the family. She worked in the university library, and immediately became involved in extracurricular activities in the college. There, she met a student sharing many of her interests who was also meeting his needs with part-time work and scholarships. As it so happened, she wrote an article about the student, Bob Spitze, for the student newspaper.

As you might anticipate, this acquaintance evolved into lasting romance. They became engaged in 1943 but, because of his wartime service, they had to wait until he was commissioned in the U.S. Naval Reserve before they were married on March 4, 1944, on his furlough. They spent only two months together of their first two years of married life. During that time, she completed her education, taught home economics in high schools, and worked in support of the war effort at the Pentagon during her summer breaks. Hazel and Bob had just celebrated their 65th anniversary on March 4, 2009.

Upon rejoining his bride again after World War II on the University of Arkansas campus, Bob finished his B.S. but neither were satisfied without further exploring their new world of knowledge through education. They chose graduate study together at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where she received her M.S. in home economics education in 1948 and Bob his Ph.D. in 1954. Following their first academic year of graduate work, they chose to use some of their wartime savings to explore war-ravaged western European countries trying to better understand the newly emerging Europe as guests of university student unions. This unique experience deeply affected their future goals and values.

They moved to Tennessee in 1951, where Bob was appointed to the University of Tennessee faculty. Hazel taught adult home economics classes in both Madison and Knoxville, and then pursued her Ed.D. degree, which she completed in 1961 shortly after the family moved to Illinois for Bob to accept a faculty appointment. Hazel soon confronted the nepotism policy at the UI. This shaped some of her future educational commitments, as she was clearly informed that she had no prospects of joining the faculty of which her husband was already a member. Taking this as one of the many unequal treatments of women in the workplace, Hazel competed successfully in a national search for a position in her field and, with the support of her department head and dean, obtained one of the first, if not the first, tenure-track appointments of a faculty spouse at the University of Illinois. This policy has long since faded.

They both earned professor rank and continued at the University of Illinois until retirement - Hazel in 1987 and Bob in 1992. Hazel's national and international reputation grew as a teacher and author. Hazel was editor of a professional journal, The Illinois Teacher of Home Economics, from 1973-1987. She was an invited speaker in over half of the states and several foreign countries. She received numerous professional awards including the Distinguished Service Award (the highest recognition from her national professional association) in 1989; University of Illinois Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award in 1981; University of Tennessee Arch of Achievement Award in 1994; and Outstanding Alumni of the Year (shared with Bob) at the University of Arkansas College of Agriculture and Home Economics, also in 1994. She was an invited participant at the White House Conference on Food, Nutrition, and Health in 1969 and the White House Conference on Children in 1970.

Her professional association memberships included the American Adult Education Association, the American Home Economics Association (now the American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences), the American Vocational Educational Association, and others. She was a member of Phi Upsilon Omicron, Omicron Delta Kappa, Omicron Nu and other honorary associations at national and state levels. She frequently served as a consultant, including work at the national headquarters of the American Home Economics Association. In the program for the centennial anniversary convention of the AAFCS in 2009, in which Hazel would have been a main contributor if in better health, a highlighted paragraph was an important quotation from her journal article of 1976.

She had a passion for education at all levels and recognition of the value of education for personal development, family, community and world peace. She taught at secondary, adult, and higher-education levels and participated in experimental approaches to education. She developed two original games to teach nutrition, which were copyrighted and widely marketed, and she, with her graduate students, created innovative programs for teaching nutrition and child development to low-income mothers in Urbana. She traveled widely to conduct research on teaching in the states of Arkansas, Illinois, New York, North Carolina, and the District of Columbia. She was an early practitioner of environmentalism and resource conservation.

She became a mentor for many women wishing to launch or finish degree programs after family changes and for students of diverse origins. Students from abroad, such as Australia, were attracted to Hazel's philosophy of education, resulting in many receiving advanced degrees at the UI. They invited her one summer to travel there and to New Zealand for workshops and lectures. She and Bob were continually enriched by traveling to many countries and participating in professional programs of their respective international associations.

Hazel enjoyed nonfiction reading, gardening, walking, playing bridge, and traveling throughout the world and to visit children and grandchildren. Her retirement included volunteering for Habitat for Humanity, Amnesty International, ACLU, United Way, Center for Women in Transition, and Planned Parenthood. Other activities included service on the University YMCA board, the local chapter of the United Nations, the League of Women Voters, Memorial Society, the political party of her choice, and liberal religious organizations of her choice.

As her memory loss, recognized many years earlier, denied her many professional and hobby pleasures, she continued to enjoy the house she had carefully picked out in 1961. It was near schools, the library, shopping, and the UI, but most of all, near the beautiful, vibrant Blair Park in Urbana, which she continued to see to the end from her picture window. Until her death, she continued working for social justice and peace.

Nurses and many CNAs of Diversified Health Care Services Inc. brought Hazel much medical, personal, and emotional care during her last months.

Hazel and Bob endowed student scholarships and faculty awards for excellence at four land-grant universities at which they earned degrees or had appointments: Arkansas, Wisconsin, Tennessee, and Illinois.

Memorials may be made to the University of Illinois Foundation's Hazel Taylor Spitze Educational Fund or the Foundation's Mary E. Mather and Hazel Taylor Spitze Fund (College of Education). These funds support student scholarships and faculty awards in the ACES and Education Colleges. Foundation address: Harker Hall, 1305 W. Green St., Urbana, IL 61801.

A public celebration of Hazel's life will be held at 3 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 6, at the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences Library, 1101 S. Goodwin Ave., U, on the University of Illinois campus.

The Spitze family is being assisted by Heath and Vaughn Funeral Home, 201 N. Elm St., C.

Condolences may be offered at www.heathandvaughn.com.