Pete and Hazel

I know it sounds like a sitcom, but Pete and Hazel were my grandparents best friends. Pete and Hazel Sutton lived on a farm near Fulton, Indiana, which is in Fulton County. Rochester is the county seat and the nearest town.

I wish I knew exactly how they met. Family lore is that their relationship grew out of meeting each other’s needs during World War II. Pete Sutton operated a farm and needed gasoline to run his tractor and other farm equipment. Gas was being rationed during the war. My grandparents were able to help him out by doing without gasoline and giving Pete their rationing cards... they could walk everywhere they needed to go. In return, Pete and Hazel supplied food that they grew on the farm. Not just garden vegetables, but probably meat as well, which would have been in short supply.

I know that the families became very close. Pete and Hazel’s kids-Jimmy, Nina, and Butch, were treated more like cousins to my mom than friends. Jimmy was the town barber and young family man when I was little. Nina married Neil Krisher and lived in Chicago. Our family visited them on a vacation to Chicago when I was little. I still remember the zoo and watching a White Sox game. My dad later helped Neil get a better job in Anderson with Delco-Remy. I’m not sure what happened to the youngest son, Butch. He was about Jay’s age. I went to stay with them on the farm to have a  “farm experience” and I slept in Butch’s room upstairs when I was there for the week. Pete took us squirrel hunting. They had an outhouse, but had just installed indoor plumbing in an addition just off of the kitchen also. They had a cow and a big barn to play in. There were kids more my age across the road with all kinds of farm animals. I was pretty shy and that may be why I got shipped off. It really was fun. The family picture shows two other ladies, and I’m not sure if they are daughters or daughters-in-law.

An interesting thing about Pete and Hazel is that they got the farm by making a deal with an elderly gentleman. He gave them the farm in exchange for a promise to care for him the rest of his life. And that’s just what they did. It seems like he was mostly blind and deaf, but could hear if you spoke loud enough. He was treated like a member of the family. The old guy had a small bedroom upstairs just off of the main room. It was probably Nina’s room before she left home.

My grandparents often visited during the war and thereafter. Having Pete and Hazel come to Anderson was cause for a family get-together. In fact, Jay just reminded me that my grandparents were returning from a visit to Pete and Hazel’s when my grandmother slumped over in the car and died due to another heart attack.