Hazel Vermeer

Hazel Vermeer, 96, formerly of Sioux Center, IA died Wednesday, June 20, 2012 in Bedford, MA. A visitation will be held on Thursday from 9:30AM to 10:30AM at the Central Reformed Church of Sioux Center. A funeral service will be held at Thursday at 10:30AM at the Central Reformed Church with Rev. Van Rathbun officiating. Interment will follow the service in Memory Gardens Cemetery of Sioux Center. In lieu of flowers the Vermeer family prefers memorials to the New Hospital Project c/o the Sioux Center Community Hospital Foundation. Arrangements have been entrusted to Memorial Funeral Home of Sioux Center. Hazel Theresa Néck was born March 7, 1916, in Marksville, Louisiana, the daughter of Alphonse P. Néck and Blanche (Laborde) Néck. She attended Presentation Convent and Marksville High School, graduating in 1933 as valedictorian of her class. She attended Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, receiving a Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration. During her last two years as an undergraduate, she was secretary to the Academic Dean of the University. She received memberships in several honor fraternities - Phi Kappa Phi (general scholarship), Beta Gamma Sigma (commerce), Pi Gamma Mu (social sciences), and Alpha Omega (religious activities). She then worked as secretary to the Head of the Department of Agricultural Economics at the University, at the same time taking graduate courses in that department. Hazel met James Vermeer in September 1939, when he went to Louisiana State University for graduate work in Agricultural Economics, and they were married on March 26, 1940. After graduation, they lived in Ames, Iowa, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Washington, D.C. After her husband's tour of duty with the United States Navy, 1943-46 during World War II, they settled in Washington, D.C., both working for the United States Department of Agriculture. Hazel served as secretary to a division head in marketing research, and then as editor of technical bulletins, administrative officer, economist, and marketing specialist until retirement in 1976. During that time, she also worked with Camp Fire Girls and the Land Ladies, composed of agricultural wives. In 1992, she and her husband moved to Sioux Center, Iowa. Survivors include a daughter and her husband, Lynn V. and Robert J. Burns of Lexington, MA, two grandsons, Kenneth James Jones and his wife, Jacquie of San Antonio, TX and Charles Raymond Jones of Lexington, MA, one great-grandson Gabriel Jones as well as many nieces and nephews in the Sioux Center area, Atlanta, GA and Radford, VA. She was preceded in death by her husband, parents and sister, Odessa N. Smith.