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Hazel Fay Eakin was born in Bellingham, WA. She grew up in Bartlesville, OK where she graduated from high school and attended business school. She held a number of jobs with various businesses in Bartlesville before relocating to Baltimore, Maryland. She was employed at the Social Security Administration before World War II. She met William C. Lathan, Sr. at a Texas Club gathering in Baltimore and they married about three months later. During WWII she followed her husband into war related employment at least in part to follow his movements around the continental United States and also so she could be near his family in Texas. In Texas, she worked for a govt. agency buying and selling war materials. After the war, she returned with William Sr. to Baltimore and worked with the Social Security Administration until leaving to be a full time mother. She spent the next years raising her son and working in various volunteer positions, in particular as a Cub Scout Den Mother, Vacation Bible School Arts and Crafts instructor (New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, Wash., D. C.),(site loads slow) and as a camp counselor at the Presbyterian Church camp, Happy Valley, near Havre de Grace, MD.

Shortly before moving to Manassas, VA, she went back to full time employment. She worked briefly for the National Capital Area Council of The Boy Scouts of American doing clerical work at their Washington, D.C. headquarters. She then worked for the Department of Navy at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, MD for a short time. She changed jobs again and worked with the data processing dept. of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD. until her retirement.

She was always interested in Wild Flowers and had "her jungle" (a quote from her) in the family's back yard in Manassas, VA. She was also an animal lover and nearly always owned at least one cat. There are many photos of her and her pet cats.

She and her husband, William C. Lathan, Sr., were active travelers and traveled regularly by automobile to various locations, particularly Texas and Oklahoma. They also made several trips to southwest Virginia searching the Eakin family history. Photos and records from these trips are available by special request to, William C. Lathan, Jr. They also toured the far west including California, Washington and the Western portion of Canada. On one such trip they were able to visit with an old high school friend Harol Lee of California. He had been the only kid of Chinese extraction to attend her high school in Bartlesville and they had become life long friends.

She had played Clarinet in her high school band. She and her husband were a driving force in the early days of the Osbourn High School Band Boosters (old site) of Manassas, Virginia. They actively participated in fund raising, working hundreds of hours.

Shortly after retirement she contracted Breast Cancer and spent about five years in treatment. Eventually, the cancer spread to where it could not be eradicated. From time to time her love of animals brought about some disagreement between her and her research biologist husband concerning the use of animals in research. However, true to her beliefs she allowed her doctors to use a number of experimental treatments on her. She always said, "Those who don't like animal testing should volunteer to be a human Guinea pig." Realizing she was near the end she was true to her word.

NOTE: Her husband, William Clark Lathan, Sr., always said that having to destroy contaminated test animals was an emotionally difficult part of his job.

More information concerning Hazel Fay Eakin's employment is available by contacting, William C. Lathan, Jr., at the email address listed on the Contacts and Credits page of this site.

Source: William C. Lathan, Jr.