Connie Hazen

Connie Mae Berlin Hazen

Connie Mae Berlin Hazen, kind, caring and beloved wife, mother, sister, grandmother and friend returned home to her Heavenly Father in the wee hours of Sunday, Feb. 18, 2018 after a brief illness. There must have been glad hearts in heaven to see her again for as the otherwise gray day dawned, a brilliant sun found its way through the clouds and for a few precious moments turned the sky a joyous gold. She was born Sept 3, 1936 to goodly parents Hilda Berkenpas and Lynn Angus Berlin in Ogden, Utah, their first. Her childhood was filled with fun and wonder and she was the apple of many an eye. She was good to her little sister Lani, who passed away some years ago, and her little brother Steven.

She graduated from Ogden High School, a place always dear to her heart. She earned a degree in nursing from Weber College and became a registered nurse practicing at the Dee Hospital and others and in the office of John A. Dixon, MD, later dean of the University of Utah Medical School.

A young beauty, she married a handsome Ogden lad, Robert D. Hazen in the Salt Lake Temple, June 26, 1959. With Connie by his side they lived in Chicago as he completed his training at Northwestern University Dental School followed by service in the US Air Force in Minot, ND. As a devoted wife and homemaker, she saw to details large and small, such as Dr. Hazen’s having a freshly laundered and hand-pressed shirt every day of his professional life.

She was a woman of many passions. First among these was family. Her four children, John, Elizabeth Hawkes (Clay), Rebecca Stout (James), Jennifer Quinn (Tim), were the light of her life and she reveled in their accomplishments. She imbued them with her love of music, dance, sport and performance of all kinds. When they were sick she was the best caregiver ever. Connie stayed close to her mother and father and as her mother aged she spent uncounted days selflessly providing tender care, support and comfort.

Her love of family also extended back to generations long before. With an early start on her beloved genealogy and family history, she gained an encyclopedic knowledge of countless obscure names, abodes and vital statistics of ancestors in Europe, Scandinavia, Great Britain, New England, Nauvoo and the West. Filled with the Spirit of Elijah, when her children were raised she liked nothing better than spending hours in the Family History Library sleuthing through scratchy microfilm and poring over two-hundred-year-old Gothic handwriting in dusty church books to discover who came before her. She thought computers took some of the fun out of it. Connie loved travel and with family visited ancestral homelands making fast friends along the way including her dear Rim and Elsien from a little town in northern Holland many of her relatives came from. In another such place in Sweden she once persuaded the caretaker of a local, much disused church building, to start up the blowers for its pipe organ whereupon she played a thunderous and familiar hymn to the delight of the little party who were showing off their village. Returning to her father’s beloved mission field in Hawaii as a young woman, she always kept in her heart new Hawaiian friends such as dear Chucky and Odetta even when much time might pass without seeing them.

Her greatest strength and a blessing she so often bestowed on others was her unconditional love. Your faults and mistakes caused her to listen, to understand, and perhaps gently offer wise counsel if asked, to love you all better when she could, but never caused judgment or rejection. So welcoming was the home she kept that kids, grandkids, neighbors and relatives would constantly just parade right in, not even bothering to knock, so they could spend time talking with their mom, or grandma or friend.

She loved her cabin in the woods of Idaho and nothing better than when it was filled with the happy noise of all her kids and grandkids, their dogs and their friends. She invented family traditions that will always carry on such as her Christmas percussion band where everybody had a makeshift instrument to play and words to sing. She was an excellent cook, though apparently never knew it, and could put on a delicious Sunday dinner or a picnic for the multitudes. She was an avid reader and student. She loved classic literature and long deceased female scribblers. At the time of her death she was working her way through the Old Testament, a companion study guide by her side.

Connie was a faithful, unswerving, lifelong Latter-day Saint. She knew and loved the Gospel and if you wavered a little you might get a faith-building book or DVD for Christmas as a hint. She was an accomplished pianist and played for the Relief Society and Primary. Among her most satisfying service was more than a decade playing piano in church services for the residents of a convalescent home, rejoicing in the elderly she met there and being able to bring some beauty to their lives.

She leaves behind a blessed posterity, her four children, seventeen grandchildren including one serving a mission in the Philippines, five great-grandchildren and countless extended family, friends and neighbors.

Funeral services will be held at 11:00 a.m., Monday, February 26, 2018 at the Woodland Hills Ward Chapel, 640 S. 750 E. Bountiful, Utah.  Friends may visit family Sunday, Feb. 25th from 6-8 p.m. at Lindquist’s Bountiful Mortuary, 727 N. 400 E. Bountiful, Utah and Monday from 9:30-10:30 a.m. at the Church prior to services.  Interment Bountiful City Cemetery.

Connie Mae Berlin Hazen will be sorely missed by her family and all the many people whose lives she touched with generosity, love and kindness. There is much sorrow in many hearts, but much gratitude for having been her family, her friends. Till we meet again, dearest Connie, till we meet again.