Obit of Matthews, Hazel - Sequoyah County, Oklahoma Submitted by: Gene Phillips 31 Dec 2006 Return to Sequoyah County Archives: http://www.usgwarchives.net/ok/sequoyah/sequoyah.html ===================================================================== USGENWEB NOTICE Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm ===================================================================== ::Sebastopol Memorial Lawn--Sebastopol CA Santa Rosa Press Democrat Published on August 1, 2005 A farm girl who left her native Oklahoma during the 1930s Dust Bowl drought, Hazel C. Matthews moved to California and worked in Bay Area shipyards and canneries before opening a beauty shop at her longtime Graton home. Matthews died Friday in a Santa Rosa convalescent hospital of complications from pneumonia. She was 79. She was born Hazel Jackson in Sallisaw, Okla., on May 26, 1926, one of four children of farmers Elmer and Rachel Jackson. The family migrated first to California's Central Valley, where they picked cotton and berries near Dos Palos. There, Matthews remained to finish high school before joining her parents at the Richmond shipyards, where she worked and volunteered for the USO. "She worked very hard all her life and provided a foundation for us, for our lives," said daughter Sandy Matthews of Sebastopol. A Sebastopol berry farm on Pleasant Hill Road that her parents later ran led her to Sonoma County, where she met restaurant and bar owner Raymond Matthews of Ray's Place in Graton. The couple married in 1946. As a newlywed, Hazel Matthews worked candling eggs at Poultry Producers. She also worked in local fruit canneries before attending Santa Rosa Beauty College. "She loved fixing hair; she was kind of a natural with it," recalled Carolyn Farmer of Santa Rosa, the Matthews' oldest daughter. For 40 years, starting around 1960, Matthews operated Hazel's Beauty Deck in their converted Graton garage. Her talents, "wicked sense of humor," and demeanor kept clients loyal, Matthews' daughters remembered. "You'd get her going, and she'd just entertain everyone," Farmer said. "She loved to laugh." A charter member of the First Baptist Church in Graton, Matthews also was a skilled seamstress, pie and cobbler baker, and an avid reader of three daily newspapers. Her husband died in 2003. In addition to her daughters, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, she is survived by a sister, Norma Long of Sacramento, and brothers- in-law Allen Long and Denver Fox, both of Sacramento. A funeral will be noon Tuesday at Parent-Sorensen Mortuary, 301 S. Main St. in Sebastopol, with interment at Sebastopol Memorial Lawn. The family suggests donations to Memorial Hospice, 821 Mendocino Ave., Santa Rosa, 95401, or to Sutter VNA & Hospice, 1110 N. Dutton Ave., Santa Rosa, 95401. -- Katy Hillenmeyer -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Return to Sequoyah County Archives: http://www.usgwarchives.net/ok/sequoyah/sequoyah.htm