By Susan Terry, daughter.
Hazel Alice Wills was born to Jennie and Timothy Wall, on February 26, 1920, in a log cabin in Oxdrift, Ontario.
She was educated in a one-room schoolhouse, and later attended and studied at St Boniface Hospital, in Winnipeg, to become a Registered Nurse. On June 1, 1944, King George VI, assigned Hazel duties, to serve in WWII, in the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corp., as 2nd Lieutenant.
During her service, at Christie Street Hospital, in Toronto, she tended to a young soldier, Clifford E.R. Wills, who enlisted in WWII, at age 16, and fought in Belgium in 1944.
In his final battle to liberate Belgium, he stepped on a mine, was blown in the air and landed on another, to become a double leg amputee. After his stepmother told him that he couldn’t come home, as she was “…not going to take care of a cripple,” 'Cliff' convinced Hazel to take him to her Dryden home for recovery, on her vacation.
While there, he saved her and her friend from drowning in the Wabigoon River.
They married in 1945, in Niagara Falls, where they resided until 1969 and raised six children (Lynne, Liela, Karen, James, Susan, Brian). Clifford died December 2, 1980, in North Bay General Hospital.
Hazel was a Registered Nurse at the Niagara General Hospital until 1969, the Port Arthur General Hospital (1969/70), and Ontario Psychiatric Hospital in North Bay (1971/86), as a nursing Supervisor. She currently resides at Eastholme long-term care facility, Powassan.
She has six children, 13 grandchildren, and 11 great-grandchildren.
Family and friends will celebrate with a drop in from 1 to 3 at Eastholme this afternoon. (Wednesday)
