Hazel Cleary has crocheted four copies of Michelangelo’s famous painting, The Last Supper, which she has given away as gifts.
Crocheting runs through her life by Vicki Olson Carr
Just about every pioneer fam-
ily out West had someone who liked to stay busy with knitting needles or a crochet hook and some colorful yarn or a ball of crochet thread. But why would anyone take on the daunting task of creating beautiful designs or replicas of famous paintings with a crochet hook? When I sat down with Chelan resident Hazel Cleary to find out why she has the hobby of doing filet style crocheting, an amazing life story tumbled out of her mouth as if a dam had broken. Hazel was born at home during the Great Depression. The only doctor in the TwispWinthrop area was tied up with another difficult birth. So her father acted as midwife and followed the directions the doctor gave him over the phone. “Dad said I came out screaming,” Hazel said, wrinkling up her nose and laughing, “and I guess that’s pretty much how I’ve lived my life ever since.” As the eldest of four siblings, Hazel often had to be a little mother in charge when her mother would slip away for the day and leave the children alone.
“I remember standing on a chair and frying potatoes for my Dad to eat when he came home from his day job, before he left for his other job. That was the only thing I knew how to do.” When Hazel was eight, her two brothers accidentally started a fire in the kitchen while they were making torches out of rolled up newspapers and the fire in the cook stove. She ran two blocks to a neighborhood grocery store for help because nobody else was home. Everybody called the older couple who ran the store Grandma and Grandpa, and they helped get the fire department to the house in time to save it. This disaster brought a government social worker to the home who intended to place them in foster homes for their own safety and security. “Well, I just told that woman we weren’t going anywhere… and I told her to get back in that car out there and leave us alone!” Hazel’s index finger stabbed the air emphatically, probably just like she did when she was eight. Hazel went on to explain how her father filed for divorce, got full custody of his children, arranged some child care for them
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Along with religious themes, such as Faith, above, Hazel crochets playful scenes of kids and animals.
and married Laura who brought her small daughter into the family. Soon the family was living in a 27-foot trailer in Moses Lake where Hazel’s father was working to expand the landing strips at Larson Air Force Base. Housing was tight during WWII. “We just did what we had to do,” Hazel said.
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July 2021
This is the place in Hazel’s story where crocheting crept in. Laura and her mother were both handy with a crochet hook, and Hazel was fascinated with this needle art too. “Crochet thread was cheap, and you didn’t need much room to do it,” she explained. Eventually, Laura got to be called “Mom,” and her mother
