Hazel on the Rails

When I grew up with my great-grandmother Hazel, we all lived in southern California, so I somehow assumed she had been born there.

It wasn’t until I inherited all the family Bibles and began reading through the birth entries that I realized she was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and traveled to many other places before she arrived on the west coast. More importantly, it was not her idea to move.

I began Becoming Hazel with her recurring nightmare of being on the rails, and I did that for a reason. She would probably never have become the strong, independent young woman she was had she not been forced to leave Kalamazoo, nor would she have met Charlie. She was given the opportunity to break free from her parents and to determine her own fate.

But every time that happened, she was put on the rails, on a train, and it always changed her life. The saying “stay on the rails” means to keep one’s bearings, to do what is right, to not fall into traps. Hazel’s father, James, warned her to do just that. Hazel argued that he “forced her onto the rails” sending her from home to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, to Mineral Wells, Texas. Charlie would later do the same thing, uprooting her from the career she loved, and it nearly broke Hazel’s heart. After all, he had promised she would always have a career. But it was more complicated than that, because Charlie also wanted a family, and Hazel knew she couldn’t have both.