Hawaii’s World
HAZEL Van Allen (then Hazel Bretzlaff) first came to my attention in 1990 on a Waialae-Kahala sidewalk. This attractive, gray-haired woman was walking, smiling and holding hands with my friend Bill Van Allen, also gray-haired. He then was 75. She was 71. Hazel Van Allen
gave to many causesI have known retired Army Col. William Van Allen since before he retired in 1985 from his second career, land division manager at Bishop Estate.
Since 1972, Hazel and Bill had lived with their first spouses in the Kahala Regency apartments, adjacent to Kahala Mall. They were passing acquaintances only.
After Bill was widowed in 1989, the apartment manager called it to the attention of Hazel, then a widow for five years and, like Bill, childless. Hazel wrote a sympathy note to Bill.
When they next met at the post office, Bill thanked her. That was it, he says: "A spark was struck."
Bill gets a happy gleam in his eye when he talks about such things. After 10 months of dating, they married and she moved into Bill's apartment.
Hazel died in a Reno, Nev., hospice on June 27 following brain surgery and an air evacuation from Honolulu to Reno, her family home. She and Bill never stopped holding hands until she was immobilized by her illness in March.
When W. Herbert Bretzlaff, Hazel's first husband, died in 1984, he left her an estate built on an office furniture and equipment business in Detroit.
She founded a charitable trust in his name, starting it with $180,000. From then on, she regularly added personal funds to it. Aided by wise investments, the Bretzlaff Foundation now is worth $20 million. It distributes more than $1 million a year.
After they married, Bill, who has a smaller charitable trust, helped her manage these philanthropic affairs very privately. A Star-Bulletin obituary on Hazel was headlined, "Woman's donations to island causes revealed after her death."
The new twosome continued a lifestyle far below their means. They busied themselves helping good causes while dividing their year between the Kahala Regency and Reno. In Honolulu, they were regular attendees at lunches of foreign policy groups, often traveling by bus.
THE Bretzlaff Foundation's charitable reach is across America. It focuses on Hawaii, Reno, the Gallaudet School for the Deaf in Washington, D.C., and Hillsdale University in Michigan. The university stands alone in refusing all government aid in the interest of preserving maximum academic freedom.
Major 50th state beneficiaries have been the Hawaii Justice Foundation, $264,000; Honolulu Academy of Arts, $227,000; Bishop Museum, $208,000; Salvation Army, $193,000; Historic Hawaii, $118,000; St. Francis Hospice, $85,000; Honolulu Symphony, $76,000; Heart Ball, $45,000; Hawaii Opera, $35,000; and Hawaii Theatre, $14,000. One of Hazel's satisfactions was the prompt repayment of a loan she made to expand Ba-Le Sandwich Shops, a Vietnam immigrant start-up.
Reno services were held July 17. An invitational remembrance service will be held at the Honolulu Academy of Arts Center Courtyard at 5:30 p.m. Friday, Aug. 27. There will be a private interment of her ashes near those of Herbert Bretzlaff at Punchbowl National Cemetery. Any remembrance gifts should be to the Bretzlaff Foundation, 165 West Liberty St., Reno, NV 89501.
Both Van Allens ranked community service above just about everything except their personal relationship.
A.A. Smyser is the contributing editor
and former editor of the the Star-Bulletin
His column runs Tuesday and Thursday.