Pfeil Funeral Homes - Sandusky Chapel
617 Columbus Ave
Sandusky, OH 44870
Phone: 419-625-2655
Email: donpfeil@pfeilfuneralhome.com
Website: http://www.pfeilfuneralhome.com/
View All Obituaries from Pfeil Funeral Homes - Sandusky Chapel
June R. Schlicter Hay, 86, passed away unexpectedly, February 3, 2012, at Parkvue Health Care Center, Sandusky, Ohio.
Following a private committal service, the Rev. David Aber officiating, she was laid to rest at Oakland Cemetery, next to her husband John, who preceded her in death in 1999.
A Memorial Service will be held Saturday, February 18, 2012, at 11:00 A.M., at First Presbyterian Church, Sandusky, for family, neighbors and friends. Mrs. Hay's former students are warmly invited to attend, and to share memories of her teaching experiences.
Mrs. Hay taught English, at Sandusky High School in the 1960's and 1970's. She taught college-preparatory American literature to high school juniors, instilling in them a love for the written and spoken word. She pushed her students to write with clarity and flair. She insisted they read American classics, as part of the American Studies curriculum she developed with the late Fred Leffler and Don Nath.
In 1966, she wanted her students to read To Kill a Mockingbird, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Harper Lee, about racial injustice in small-town Alabama during the 1930's, but was prevented from doing so by the Board of Education, because it deemed the book too controversial. In the same period, she was allowed to assign Gone with the Wind, the 1936 romance novel by Margaret Mitchell, set during the Civil War in Georgia, to a different class, most of whom had never read a book. Teaching it took the spring semester, but she enjoyed acting out the scenes in class with her students.
Mrs. Hay went to unusual lengths to connect with American authors for the benefit of her students. One summer, she traveled with her family to Oxford, Mississippi, and knocked on the door of William Faulkner, a winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. She hoped for a few words with him she could carry home to her students about his books Light in August and As I Lay Dying. She was thrilled to see him peeking at her from behind the door as she talked with Mrs. Faulkner, who relayed answers from him.
Following her retirement from teaching, she worked for a time as a caseworker for Erie County Children's Services. She self-studied and passed the state license exam, despite having no academic background in social work.
June Rose Schlicter Hay was born June 28, 1925, in Atlantic City, N.J., to Elsie Matilda (Sheafer) and Carl Frederick Schlicter, the eldest of four children. She was the Valedictorian of her eighth grade class, and thereby won admittance to the prestigious all-academic Philadelphia High School for Girls, graduating in 1941, at the age of sixteen. Following graduation, she entered Pennsylvania Hospital School of Nursing, hoping for a career as an army nurse. Two bouts of rheumatic fever ended her hopes for a nursing career, but she won a scholarship to Lincoln Memorial University in Tennessee, where she lived in the home of the college president, and served as a companion for his daughter. While at Lincoln Memorial, she won the coveted Dr. Reese Patterson Memorial Award in an annual contest for the best declamation, with "O Brother Man!" by John Greenleaf Whittier. Her prize was ten dollars.
With her prize money, she bought a bus ticket from Tennessee to Cedar Point with her sorority sisters, to wait tables, for the summer. There, on her twentieth birthday, she met John W. Hay, who was moonlighting as a saxophone player in a Cedar Point band. He was the love of her life. She married him ten weeks later, on September 15, 1945. They were married 53 years, until Mr. Hay's death in 1999.
While raising a family, Mrs. Hay returned to college, graduating magna cum laude from Bowling Green State University in 1959, then worked toward a master's degree in English.
Mrs. Hay held numerous leadership roles in various Sandusky organizations. She was a former president of the Women's Civic Club, and vice-president of the College Women's Club. She served on the Session of First Presbyterian Church, where she was also a member of Presbyterian Women. For decades she was involved with the Harlequins Community Theatre, where she directed plays, including William Inge's Dark at the Top of the Stairs, and several children's plays. In 1951, she won the "Outstanding Actress" Award. She played the lead in various Harlequins productions. Tall, slim, and red-haired, she came alive on the stage.
Mrs. Hay became close friends with Beverly Buck Mayer in the Harlequins. When Beverly's daughter, "Jackie," won the Miss Ohio pageant and went on to compete in the Miss America pageant, Mrs. Hay traveled with the family entourage back to the city of her birth, and was present at Convention Hall when Jacquelyn Jeanne Mayer was crowned Miss America 1963. Mrs. Hay talked about this experience as one of the highlights of her life, as were her summer travels throughout the U.S., Canada, and Central America.
In more recent years, Mrs. Hay served as a volunteer for Stein Hospice, and as a guide at the Merry-Go-Round Museum. She particularly enjoyed the Book Discussion Group at Sandusky Library where she was an active participant for at least fifteen years.
During the 1980's, she and her husband lived first in Naples, Florida, and then in Hendersonville, N.C., where Mrs. Hay worked as a docent at the boyhood home of the author Thomas Wolfe in Asheville. The Hays returned to Sandusky in 1991, buying a house across the street from where they had raised their children.
A child of the Great Depression, Mrs. Hay made a game of saving money and investing. She had an uncanny knack of picking winning stocks. She loved winning radio contests, and won so many times, WLEC asked her not to compete more than once a month. She constantly learned new things, read widely, and spoke her mind. Her memory for detail was remarkable. When her vision failed her, she used books on tape. She also called the Reference Desk at the Sandusky Library on a sometimes daily basis, challenging them to research subjects of interest to her.
Mrs. Hay had an indomitable will, and expected people to follow her lead. One Christmas she and her husband were guests of the recently-retired President of Guatemala, in Guatemala City. She suffered from an elevator phobia, and when she insisted on descending fifteen flights of stairs, he gallantly accompanied her, with a retinue of security guards trailing them. She made no apology.
Until the time of her death, Mrs. Hay enjoyed relationships with her former students, who wrote to her and visited with her. She rarely missed the opportunity to correct poor grammar. "You get one chance to make a good impression," she would say.
In addition to her husband and parents, Mrs. Hay was predeceased by her sister Margaret. She is survived by her children John W. Hay, Jr., (Jill) of Columbus, and Martha, of Greenwich, Ct., and four grandchildren, John, Emily, Thornton, and Rose. She is also survived by her brothers Carl David Schlicter (Margaret) and John Schlicter (Suzanne), and several nieces, a nephew, and cousins.
Arrangements were by Pfeil Funeral Home of Sandusky. Mrs. Hay's family thanks the caregivers at Parkvue Health Care Center for their care, and the reference librarians at Sandusky Public Library for their humor and patience. The family requests that memorial contributions be made to the Sandusky Public Library.
