** All Text on these chapter pages has been copied verbatim – with permission – from this book: “Shurtleff Family Genealogy & History – Second Edition 2005” by William Roy Shurtleff & his dad, Lawton Lothrop Shurtleff ** Text in pdf convert to word doc – any spelling errors from the book may or may not have been fixed. **
Hazle Lawton was born in Berkeley, California, on 25 September 1890. She was the daughter of Frank H. Lawton and Fannie Rogers Lawton. She married Roy Lothrop Shurtleff on 13 October 1913, at age 23, in Berkeley. She died on 19 May 1948 at her home in Orinda, California, at age 57.
From February 1909 to June 1911 Helen Lawton, Hazle’s younger sister, kept a handwritten diary, which was published in 1987. Helen and Hazle were close in many ways. They shared the same birthday, though Hazle was born exactly two years earlier. Helen mentioned Hazle 92 times in the diary, and they did many things together. Fortunately, this diary covers the period when Hazle met Roy Shurtleff and tells us much about their courtship.
During 1909, when Hazle was 18-19 years old, she was an extremely popular young lady, going out with six young men: Dwight Woods, Roy Turner (with whom she went to the Senior Ball in August 1909), Roy Hunt, Elmer Dent, Bob Curry, and Arthur Bell. Of these Elmer Dent, Dwight Woods, and above all Roy Hunt seemed to be the most serious. Don Lawton (Hazle’s younger brother), who knew Roy Turner very well, recalls: “he was a very popular and good-looking fellow—a Delta Sigma Chi, just outstanding. Everybody knew him. He dated Helen more than Hazle.” In September 1909 Roy Turner was manager of the Berkeley High football team. Elmer Dent visited Hazle at home five times, and took her to a party, a dance, a track meet, and a football game. Dwight Woods invited her to the Orpheum (a theater featuring vaudeville and regular theater) and to the ice-skating rink.
Roy Hunt first appeared in Helen’s dairy on 6 August 1909, when he paid the first of several visits to Hazle at her home. He was a great football player, the yell leader and a swimmer at Berkeley High. He later starred in football at Cal, where he was a Fiji. He went to West Point Military Academy after Cal, became a general in the marines, and was a great hero a Okinawa. His famous expression just before the American troops landed was, “All right you guys, just give those Japs hell!” In the fall of 1909 Roy Hunt also took Hazle to a rally, for a cruise on the Millers’ yacht, and to a high school fraternity dance.
Hazle didn’t do a lot of dating during the first half of 1910, though she did go to San Jose in Ward Sorrick’s auto on February 26. Perhaps she was busy with her studies, preparing to graduate from Berkeley High, which she did on the evening of 3 June 1910. The Berkeley High School yearbook, 01la Podrida, shows her to have relatively few school activities, and those only in her senior year: “Literary Chairman Reception Committee Senior Dance ’10; Candy Sale Committee, ’10.”
On 16 October 1910 Roy Shurtleff, then a junior at Cal, first appeared in Helen’s diary. He came to the Lawtons’ home that Sunday night for dinner, and returned again for three of the next four Sunday dinners. Apparently he came for more than just the meals, for on November 23 and 24 are two entries that read simply but intimately, “Roy & Hazle,” as if no more need be said. On December 10 they went to Alameda together, on November 30 to a Theta Chi high school dance, on December 23 to the Columbia theater to see “Polly of the Circus,” and on New Year’s Eve to a dance in San Francisco. These frequent dates continued during 1911, with Hazle rarely seeing anyone else. Roy visited Hazle at home numerous times, and took her to a Theta Chi dance at the St. Francis Hotel, to see several plays in San Francisco, to an excursion to Grizzly Peak, and once to church.
By 1911 Hazle seems to have forgotten all about Roy Hunt and the rest of her young suitors.
Roy Shurtleff was her one and only from then on. Don Lawton recalled in 1987 when he was a vigorous 90 years old:
Roy Hunt and Hazle were very very very. We thought they were going to get married. But I think father said, “You don’t want to marry a football player!” Roy Hunt was a very popular fellow, but he had none of the drive Roy Shurtleff had.
He was easy going and everybody loved him. But Roy Shurtleff was a real student, into politics, and the like.
Hazle’s closest women friends during these years appear to be Dorothy Hundley, Gladys Bush, Beatrice Masters, Elizabeth Stitt, and Margaret Witter. She was also friends with Rose Barker, Lucy Pray, Billie Burke, Lucille Stitt, and Gladys Burch. A number of these were in her Alpha Sigma high school sorority.
From Helen’s diary we learn that Hazle was taking music (piano) lessons with Helen and Dorothy, and that she sewed a great deal and was a member of the Alpha Sigma and Lambda Theta Phi sewing club. She was also in a bridge club. Again Don Lawton remembers:
Before college, Hazle was my protector. She was a good pal and VERY friendly, even tempered and fair. She had lots of friends. She was a good, everyday person, but with no particular talents or interests. She was a rock of Gibraltar, very generous, and dependable. She entered the University of California and joined the Pi Beta Phi sorority.
Hazle did not return to Cal to graduate after her marriage. Thus she never received a college degree from the College of Social Science, in which she had been registered.
In the years that followed, Hazle enjoyed holding parties (especially bridge parties) for her lady friends whenever an occasion presented itself. Later that month, for example, the newspapers announced that “Mrs. Roy L. Shurtleff gave a bridge party of five tables for 20 at her attractive apartment on Telegraph Ave. Spring flowers and ferns made an attractive decoration for the rooms where the games were played, and also in the dining room where tea was served.” Guests not mentioned previously included the Misses Mildred Ahls, Marian Brown, Margaret Hazleton, Jeanette Miller, Margaret Mocan, Mildred Porter, Lucie Pray, Lenore Salsie, Grace Weeks, and Margaret Witter. Married friends included Mrs. Albert Burch and Mrs. E. G. Witter, plus Hazle’s mother and Roy’s mother.
Shurtleff & Lawton Families Genealogy & History - Second Edition (2005) 