Hazel E. Moffat, 96, head of the English Department at St. Louis Park schools for more than 40 years died Tuesday August 21, 1990 at Richfield Health Care Center.

Moffat was born on her family’s farm near Jackson, Michigan, and moved to Kalamazoo, Michigan with her family when she was two years old.  She received a teaching certificate from the old Kalamazoo Normal School (now Western State College) and taught in Covert, Michigan until she married Fred Moffat in 1915.

They were ranchers in Utah and Colorado until Fred Moffat joined the Navy in World War I.  Hazel Moffat moved to Minneapolis, where her husband later joined her and she began teaching high school English in St. Louis Park in the 1920s.  She returned to college and earned a bachelor’s degree at the University of Minnesota in 1939.  Moffat retired as head of the English Department at St. Louis Park High School 43 years later in 1961.  She had been the advisor to the the Echo, the school newspaper, and the Echowan, the yearbook, and directed several school plays.

Bertil Johnson, who was high school principal during part of Moffat’s tenure, said, “She was well-liked by students because she took a personal interest in them.  She had a way of getting along with students.”

“Hazel Moffat was a legend in the St. Louis Park English department.  She had the admiration of the staff and school system,” said David Litsey, a former St. Louis Park High School English teacher and department chair in the 1960s.  “Moffat put out award-winning Echo newspapers and the Echowan yearbook,” he said.  When Moffat taught during the 1950s, the St. Louis Park school system was rapidly expanding, Litsey said. 

John Moffat remembers how his mother would correct his grammar as he was growing up.  Moffat, who had a Latin background, was from the “old school” of English teachers who would diagram sentences on the blackboard.  “She was a stickler for the rules.  The rules were important to her and she repeated them.”

Moffat fondly remembers trips with his mother to Young Quinlan’s department store in Minneapolis to buy clothes and have tea.  “She was always well-dressed.”

Moffat said his mother and Mildred Glendenning, a retired St. Louis Park teacher, were good friends and enjoyed several trips to the North Shore.  As an English teacher, Moffat also read extensively.  “One of the joys she passed on to me,” said her son.

Her husband died in 1957.  Besides her son John, of Edina she is survived by four grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren. 

Memorial service will be held September 5 at the First Memorial-Waterston Funeral Home, Minneapolis.