Hazel's Years with Earl

While working in Nelson, Hazel met and fell in love with Earl Sullivan. He was working as a gold miner at the Red Boy Mine outside Taghum, B.C. They were married on November 12, 1927 in Payette, Idaho. Earl brought his new bride to Nyssa, Oregon, where he was homesteading an island in the Snake River.

"We immediately took off for the island in Earl's old Model T Ford. We had about twenty miles to go to reach the Snake River. The roads were icy and it was pouring down rain. It was cold. But to one who had just turned 19 and was in love, it was all exciting. I didn't know, though, that Earl's folks had moved in with him. If I had, I wouldn't have been so happy."

Earl's parents were far from welcoming to their new daughter-in-law, and their attitude made for an unhappy year on the island. After John was born the following August, Hazel decided she had had enough and convinced Earl to leave the island with her.

Leaving the Island

After leaving the island, Hazel and Earl lived for four years in Owyhee, Oregon, where Earl worked on the Owyhee Dam being built on the Snake River. He then went back to mining, and for a summer, Hazel, Earl, and John went prospecting, visiting the Earl Mine where Earl had lived one summer as a boy.

That fall, Earl's parents became ill, and he moved them into a house in Ontario, Oregon. He and Hazel and John moved back onto the island, where they farmed and raised turkeys. Earl also got work with Terling Construction, running a cement mixer.

Their second son, George, was born that winter. The next year, Earl, who had been ill for over a year, was diagnosed with silicosis, a fatal lung disease. Earl was admitted into the VA Hospital in Walla Walla, WA.

Hazel and the children left the island and moved with her children to Walla Walla to be near Earl. She found night work at the cannery there, leaving the boys with the landlady at night.

Moving to Walla Walla

Shortly after moving to Walla Walla, Hazel came down with pneumonia. But she managed to get through the winter and get night work in the canary. The landlady looked out for the boys while she worked.

"I went to work at 7:00 p.m. and worked sometimes as late as 7:00 a.m. I would come home and get John off to school and supposedly sleep during the day. (Did you ever try to sleep with a one-year-old tot demanding attention?)

The next year, Hazel was diagnosed with tuberculosis and was admitted to the Blue Mountain Sanatorium. Her mother came down from Canada to take care of the boys while Hazel convalesced. She was in the sanitarium for a year and a half.

When she returned home, she did crop-field work to support the children.

When the State Rehabilitation Services offered Earl training to help support his family, he refused. Knowing he was dying, he asked that they train his wife instead. That's how Hazel got into business college.

With a college degree and U.S. citizenship, Hazel was able to get a job at the Grange in Kennewick, WA, but Earl was unhappy with her leaving the boys again with her mother, so she quit and returned to manual labor. When World War II broke out, however, she was able to get a job as a clerk in McCaw Hospital. Two years later, in January of 1945, Earl died, after eight years in the VA Hospital.

Widowhood