Hazel Colleen Church Leonard was born to Lois and Steve Church on July 16, 1925 “Colleen” arrived to her goodly parents’ home in Colorado City, Texas. Steve was a hard worker and came to ranching as his legacy and Lois helped birth babies and was known for her ability to cook for large groups. The oldest child, with shocking red hair and petite to a fault was a very small baby with pale skin. This made her a poor farm and ranch hand and due to her fight with the heat and sun her interest took a road less traveled.
Colleen still wore baby shoes in first grade and tiny clothes made from beautiful prints her mom saved and sewed. As a child she helped with field work (hated it) and chickens, cleaned eggs, and helped with butter making. She talked of loving to be with her mom while they worked. She remembers her mom’s hands working the butter mold, forming pounds of butter to sell in the years of the depression. Mom said they were lucky that they had eggs and butter money from the selling of farm goods.
Colleen remembers her dad teaching her to slaughter and put up a hog. She felt competent at the food preparation and enjoyed working with her dad every year in the winter to put up the pork for the coming year. I find this amazing thinking about my mom, this surprises me the most of all the things I have learned about her life, I never expected hog killing and butchering to be a skill she mastered. The longer I get to be with her the more I find her fascinating and full of mystery.
Before starting school Mom took a stand with all the adults in her life to teach her to read, a mission that did not get fulfilled until starting school as her parents and other relatives were either too busy or did not take her seriously.
School was wonderful per Colleen’s memories. She learned to read and excelled in all subjects she was the red headed friend to any needing help and loved tutoring her fellow classmates if they needed help with their studies. She kept a journal, a beautiful leather journal with a brightly hand-painted Indian chief on the front. This began her lifelong love of writing short-stories and poetry.
As Mom grew, she became a basketball player at the age of eleven and cherished her time acting in the school plays. She learned to play piano and socialize but her great love of all the activities she participated in was learning, she always loved to study when something grabbed her interest. My life with Mom was filled with books, painting, piano, music and writing. She even learned to speak German and went to Germany to see what she could see there.
She graduated from Stanton High School and was the Valedictorian. She also took the role of the Salutatorian as no one else wanted to do it in 1942 when she graduated at the top of her class. She stayed friends with and told stories about her classmates for our entire lives. She faithfully attended her class reunions laughing and talking to her very dear and old friends and sadly later to many funerals. Moms’ life’s thread ran through the heart of her community that formed her life.
Colleen married “Hoot” Leonard at the age of seventeen. They eloped while Dad was on leave from the military during World War II. Mom worked as a butcher at the little grocery store and then at the ration board during the war.
They were married 75 years when Hoot (Dad) passed away in 2018.
Throughout her life she took music lessons, voice lessons, piano lessons, organ lessons, college writing and poetry lessons which all grew to activities she loved and mastered. She played to organ at church, taught piano and won poetry awards as well as selling her own collection of poetry “The Butter Mold” to the public.
She later became one of the few ordained female ministers in her area and the role of nurturing and blessing congregants and families were some of her most fulfilling roles. Mom touched many lives and not only was she loved but she treasured having the opportunity to love others in their times of need.
Now this red headed, smart poet is 97 years old. She is sweet and kind, she makes us laugh out loud, she kisses us bye and touches our cheek. In other words, her best skill and attribute has been in my eyes as a thrilling independent wild hero in my life, and a tender loving mother that showed us our worth.
Colleen Church Leonard my hat goes off to you and your wonderful roots in Stanton, Texas.