Hazel Wadean Colquitt Gaches

Following an extended period of declining health, Hazel Wadean Colquitt Gaches passed gently to heaven on Thursday, May 21, 2015. In her final hours, she was surrounded by family and friends at the Good Shepherd Hospice House in Manhattan. She passed to her lord immediately following the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer by her niece Lora Annette Bernstein Cooley and her oldest son Ron.

Hazel Wadean Colquitt Gaches was born in a rural home outside of Comer, Georgia on January 28, 1931. She was the oldest daughter of Wade Hampton Colquitt and Luna Mae Steele Colquitt. As a youth she excelled at basketball and loved the outdoors. She left Comer at the age of 16 for Columbus, Georgia where she lived with her Aunt Billie and worked in a department store. At age 18 she fell in love with a young Army officer completing his training at Fort Benning, Georgia and travelled cross-county by train to marry Robert A.L. Gaches in Washington State on December 28, 1949.

During her early years of marriage, she enjoyed the adventures of life as an officer’s wife, and later, beginning in 1963, enjoyed raising her family and building many lasting friendships while living in Manhattan, Kansas. Although she always remained a Georgia peach, she loved the change of seasons and rolling hills of the Kansas Flinthills.

Dean deeply loved her family and her animals. She was a great cook and homemaker, and partner for her husband. She lived a Christian life and was a moral compass for her two sons, Ronald and Michael, and taught them to respect themselves and others, and to love all animals. She helped to care for all of the family’s dogs, including her husband’s hunting dogs, showering them with love and affection. But her biggest animal love was her big gray, tabby cat Fritz, who would lie on her shoulder and nuzzle her face with his whiskers. The neighborhood squirrels all knew they could find a free meal in Dean’s backyard, where her giant cottonwood tree provided them shelter.

Although she was short on formal education, Dean was smart about people and could spot a phony from across the room. A self-described, yellow-dog Democrat from the red clay hills of northeast Georgia, she was a populist through and through. She stayed abreast of the latest political news and had strongly held opinions about who should be running the country and how.

Dean loved cooking and sharing a cup of coffee with her friends. Her favorite foods were sweet potatoes, home grown tomatoes and peaches. The last food she ate was a baked sweet potato. She loved to garden and work in her yard, and was an environmentalist before she knew the word.

Dean was preceded in death by her beloved sister Lila Annette Colquitt Bernstein, of Athens, Georgia and her faithful husband Robert, originally from southeast Kansas. She also lost a half-brother, Billy Colquitt of Elberton, Georgia.

She is survived by her sons Ronald Neil Gaches, and his wife Colette and their two children, and Michael Dean Gaches, and his wife Sonya and their three children; her half-brother Troy Colquitt of Elberton, Georgia and his family; and her nieces Lora Bernstein Colquitt and Robin Bernstein Dance, and her nephew Jason Bernstein and their families.

Funeral Services for Mrs. Gaches will be held at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday May 26, 2015 at the Yorgensen-Meloan-Londeen Funeral Chapel in Manhattan, with the Rev. Ben Duerfeldt officiating. Private Interment will be held at the Fort Riley Post Cemetery.

Dean’s friends are encouraged to make a contribution to the Riley County Humane Shelter in her memory, help a deserving animal find a loving home. Contributions may left in care of the Yorgensen-Meloan-Londeen Funeral Home, 1616 Poyntz Avenue, Manhattan, Kansas 66502.

Online condolences may be left for the family through the funeral home website at www.ymlfuneralhome.com

Please sign this guestbook at Obituaries.LJWorld.com