Hazel Tawney

Hazel Nielsen-Tawney passed away Thursday morning July 16, 2020 in Walnut Creek, at the age of 102. She was born in Seattle, but soon moved back to California to settle in Point Richmond, where she graduated from Richmond High School in 1936. She worked her way through the University of California at Berkeley, graduating in 1940. She worked in a number of jobs and positions to help the war effort in the early 40's, married Clarence Nielsen in 1945 and eventually settled in Vacaville, where her parents had purchased a ranch on Cantelow Road. After the marriage dissolved, she supported herself and two sons, running the Vacaville Launderette on Dobbins Street for ten years before she settled into her preferred career of teaching. She began teaching grammar school, but very soon started teaching French and English at Vacaville High School. She earned her master's degree in French and served many years as chairman of the Foreign Language Department. After retiring from the Will C. Wood High School, she taught part time at Solano Junior College. She met Gerald Tawney a few years before retiring, married shortly thereafter and spent many years living in Santa Barbara while traveling all over the world and even earning her pilot's license. She served as an elder in the local Presbyterian Church in Santa Barbara, as she had in Vacaville, serves as a docent at the museum and attended art classes, among many activities. A few years after Gerry's death she moved to Walnut Creek and was again an active volunteer in local organizations, until her death. She is survived by two sons, Stanley and David; three grandchildren, Christian, London and Tessa; and three great-grandchildren, Marshall, Kyla and Hazel. Her family is saddened by her passing but enthusiastically honors her life well lived, as do so many of the students she taught who have grown to adulthood also serving as community leaders in Vacaville and all over the country.