Memorial Service for Hazel will be held on Saturday, May 26, 2012 at 11:00 AM at the Grace Lutheran Church, Sisseton, SD with the Rev. William Scruba officiating.
Hazel L. Bergerson
Hazel Lorraine (Vesting) Bergerson was born April 7, 1925, to Harold and Mae Vesting in St. Paul, Minn. Hazel passed away in Mesa, Ariz., on January 21, 2012, at the age of 86 after a short illness.
Hazel moved to Sisseton, S.D., when she was one year old, and except for a couple of years working in Mitchell, S.D, and St. Paul, lived her entire life in Sisseton. She attended rural Bosko #4 through the fifth grade, and then Sisseton Public Schools. She graduated from SHS, where her classmates chose her as their Carnival Queen, in 1942.
Hazel married Oscar Bergerson at Goodwill Lutheran Church on July 29th, 1948. Oscar passed away on his birthday, March 25th, 1989.
Hazel enjoyed a long, happy and active life, and was blessed to be able to share it with many friends. She was an active member in the Sisseton community, always happily volunteering for civic activities like the Park Board, Swimming Pool Committee, and Chamber of Commerce.
Hazel was baptized and confirmed in the Lutheran faith and was devoted to Grace Lutheran Church and served it continuously for 50 years, teaching Sunday school and vacation bible school, serving on the church council, participating in a Bible study group, and sharing her sewing skills spending countless hours with the church's quilting group crafting quilts and blankets for those in need.
She also was a Girl Scout leader, Cub Scout den leader and the proud mother of three sons who earned the Boy Scouts of America's Pro Deo Et Patria (For God and Country) Award, two of whom also earned the Scout's highest rank of Eagle.
She avidly pursued her many recreational and social interests in golfing, bowling, gardening (her greatest passion), fishing, card playing, and traveling. Her travels took her to Hawaii, Australia, England, Norway, Branson, Mo., on a fall foliage tour of New England, to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif., and on many trips to see her family.
She and Oscar enjoyed winters together in Mesa since the 1970s, and she moved there last summer. She was as active in Arizona as she was in Sisseton, coordinating her weekly golf group's outings, chairing her community's landscape beautification committee and planting and tending their gardens. She once said she wanted to bring a garden hose with her when she went to heaven. She was especially proud to have been a volunteer at the Phoenix Open Golf Tournament and Super Bowl XXX.
She was an associate member of Our Savior's Lutheran Church in Mesa, where she was a resident of Springdale Village at the time of her death. She was a winter resident of Sunvalley Villas for many years before that.
Hazel is survived by her four children, Stephen (Lois) of Minnetrista, Minn., Mary (Robert) Sieger of Durango, Colo., Terry (Eileen) of Canton, S.D, and Brian of Des Moines, Iowa, six grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren. She is also survived by a sister, Ann York of St. Paul, and was preceded in death by her husband, Oscar, grandson Keith Bergerson, one infant brother Marvin, and two sisters, Violet Thiel and Marlys Hagen.
Services will be held on Wednesday, January 25, 2012, 11:00 AM at Our Savior's Lutheran Church in Mesa. A memorial service with a private family burial service in Sisseton on May 26, 2012 at 10:00 AM with a public memorial service Saturday May 26, 2012 at Grace Lutheran Church at 11:00 AM with lunch to follow.Memorial donations may be made to the quilting ministry at Grace Lutheran Church in Sisseton or Our Savior's Lutheran Church in Mesa.
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