Arnold's Story: July 23, 1948

Hazel Nevis writes her son Arnold from Santa Barbara, where her husband is being treated at the Sansum Clinic for diabetes. 

Arnold is working in Whitehorse, California, in a lumber camp to earn some extra money for his studies at Harvard Medical School. He has long expressed a desire to become a medical missionary (presumably in the Presbyterian Church, the family religion on Hazel's side), but in this letter there is a hint that he might be rethinking his plans. Hazel and Arnold shared a strong religious bent (along with Arnold's sisters/Hazel's daughters Dolly and Laura). Older brother Leonard was far less religious, perhaps even an atheist or at best an agnostic. Hazel's husband Bill grew up Roman Catholic but married outside that church when he wed Protestant Hazel, so he was denied mass at Catholic services through much of his life. Near the end of his life, Hazel converted to Catholicism so that Bill could have mass said at his funeral. She did not mind the conversion, and in fact enjoyed the religious conversations with the priests during that process; and as a grandmother she no longer minded signing the document in which she promises to raise her children in the Catholic faith.

(Hazel's pagination is off for the last three pages.)

next post  July 28, 1948

previous post  July 22, 1948

first post in Arnold's Story  July 1943

first post in blog  Leonard's Story: May 29, 1943

Arnold's Story: August 7, 1944

Hazel writes to her son Arnold about his sister Laura, who had just had her tonsils removed at the hospital. Also, Hazel's brother Les has had to arrange a funeral for his recently deceased son Les Jr. (killed in a Navy plane crash in Miami) in San Bernardino, California. Marie is Les Jr.'s widow from Oklahoma City. 

Hazel was a staunch Presbyterian until late in life when she converted to Catholicism so that Bill Nevis may have mass said at his funeral. In those days a mixed married between Catholics and Non-Catholics denied a Catholic the honor of a church mass, and younger Hazel refused to bring up her children as Catholics; after menopause she did not mind agreeing to raise her children Catholic. After Bill died, Hazel joined and attended the Church of the Nazarene in Whittier, California, where they had move from Glendale in the late 1960s. I recall that Hazel was a fervent reader and had accumulated a large collection of books on religion by the time she, too, passed from this world in the 1970s. 

next post  August 17, 1944

previous post  August 6, 1944

first post in Arnold's Story  July 1943

first post in blog  Leonard's Story: May 29, 1943