May 5, 1916 – Feb. 2, 2018
Rose Kennedy Hagar (née Walker), called “Ken,” died on February 2, 2018, at the age of 101. She called herself “the eternal optimist” and was looking forward to turning 102. She was always looking forward to things, but her real genius lay in her ability to extract maximum enjoyment from the present moment. She could wring happiness from the smallest things, a talent that served her well all her life, especially as she aged.
There is now an entire academic field known as the “science of happiness,” and the precepts that field has recently discovered could have been culled from our mother’s life: she put relationships with family and friends first and was grateful for what she had. She accepted the world for what it was and wasted no time wishing things could be different. Rather, she got straight to work figuring out how to accommodate herself to the situation, while extracting the most joy possible. She spent no time worrying. (Our father did the worrying for both of them.)
She loved to talk and could easily strike up conversations with anyone, which she regularly did. Our father used to joke that she made three new friends every time she left the house. She delighted in new friends, but kept her old friends close. She especially loved her large extended family in Pine Valley, Nevada, which she always viewed as home in her heart. A true daughter of Nevada, she was not a soft person—or even perennially sweet. There was steel in her nature and grit. She had opinions and spoke them. Frequently. It was part of her charm.
Ken was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1916, the third child in a family of six. Her father, Charles Walker, owned a ranch and a small store in Palisade, Nevada. He died in the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic when Ken was only two. Her mother Elizabeth, who was trained as a teacher, struggled during those early years to keep her young family together. She married Ed Thomas, who became our mother’s beloved stepfather, and it was his idea to take the family by covered wagon to a remote homestead in Shasta County. Our mother remembered this trip as one of the great adventures of her life.
After their pioneer adventure, the family moved back to Nevada. Her stepfather died and Ken finished school, graduating from the University of Nevada in Reno in 1938, majoring in American History and physical education and obtaining a teaching certificate. She found work as a teacher in the small town of Carlin, Nevada, where she met and married our father Tom Hagar in 1940.
She followed her husband on several temporary work assignments in California and Nevada before the young couple finally set up house first in Carlin, then in Sparks, where our father enrolled at the University of Nevada studying electrical engineering while my mother was a stay-at-home mom raising her two young children, Roy, born in 1942 and Marilyn in 1945. They moved to Fresno, California in 1950, where Ken taught second grade for two years, and then in late 1953, the family moved to southern California, settling in West Covina, where they lived for the next 30 years. Ken raised her two older children almost by herself when our father’s job kept him traveling for three weeks out of every month. Her social life was centered around an extraordinary neighborhood of six or eight families, all with children about the same age. She attended a local church, played bridge, had exchange potluck dinners, and enjoyed a classic mid-century suburban life
In 1960 at age 44, she gave birth to her third child, Laura, two weeks after her son Roy graduated from high school. From there, she set about raising what, in effect, was a second family. She spent several years during this period as a home teacher of elementary age students who were homebound because of illness. Then in her fifties, she remained physically active and enjoyed walking and especially bicycling with friends from the neighborhood, including her best friend Eleanor Bohan.
After our father retired in the late 80s, our parents moved back to Nevada to be close to our father’s aunt, who also, it turned out, lived to be almost 100. Our parents struck up friendships with several of our mother’s childhood friends, and while our father played lots of golf, Ken gardened and socialized. They took several European vacations as well as many visits with our extended family in northern Nevada.
As they grew older and less able to care for their home, they moved in with their daughter Marilyn in Mendocino in the early aughts. They made new friends there, playing bridge, swimming at the local YMCA and enjoying life. After Ken had a fall resulting in a serious leg fracture, they moved into an assisted living facility. Our father passed away in 2010, and our mother lived on there until the facility closed four years ago, at which point she joined the Brookdale community in Windsor, CA.
To the very end of her life, Ken was able to find beauty in even the simplest of things. She would often comment how beautiful the leaves were blowing in the wind outside her window. And she loved going to the garden at Brookdale and sitting among the trees and flowers. She lived a long and rich life, and she will be greatly missed by her large family.
Contributions in memory of Ken can be sent to the Pope Valley scholarship fund with online donations at www.popevalleyscholarshipfund.org or by check to Pope Valley Scholarship Fund, P.O. BOX 45, Pope Valley, CA 94567.
