Hazel Carpenter

Beloved mother, grandmother, and teacher, Hazel Jean Beckwith Carpenter has died. She was 86 years old. She is preceded in death by her parents Hilda and Daniel Beckwith and her younger brothers Martin and Russell.

Hazel was born December 10, 1935, in Bradley, MI, where she grew up as the second of five children on her family farm south of Wayland. She graduated second in her class from Wayland Union High School in 1954. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Western Michigan University in 1958, after which she began her teaching career in Michigan.

She taught third grade in Midland and Ypsilanti. After earning a master’s degree from Eastern Michigan University, she resumed teaching in Naperville, Illinois in the 1970s, where she had relocated with her former husband John M. Carpenter and their four children. She taught high school English for more than 20 years at Naperville Central High School, where she was cherished by her students and earned several awards and recognition for her infectious interest in language, literature, and writing. Working also in the emergency room of Edwards Hospital, she enjoyed working with the doctors to help patients get the care they needed.

Upon her retirement in 2000, she traveled with her sister and brother-in-law to volunteer all over the world and in Northern Michigan to tend lighthouses. She also traveled to see and care for her grandchildren in Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Massachusetts.

She was a voracious reader and enjoyed sharing her discoveries with family and friends. She loved puzzles of all kinds. She had a quirky sense of humor and an eye for the whimsical, comical, and absurd. A self-described news junkie, she almost always had NPR running in the background. She was an adventurous cook and a lifelong learner who was especially interested in matters of health and nutrition.

She never forgot life on the farm and loved gardening. She often helped her brother with his immense vegetable patch in Wayland. When visiting with family, she regaled them with stories about picking bugs off plants, playing baseball with her siblings, and collecting worms for the fishermen on the family’s lake.

She is survived by her sister, Helen Blythe (John); brother, Daniel Beckwith (Laura); children John (Julia), Kathryn, Susan, and Janet; grandchildren Robin (Hannah), Eleanor, Jesse, Carpenter, Owen, and Ansel; and her nieces, nephews, and extended family in Michigan.

Memorial service and interment will be private.