METAMORA - Hazel Marie Carlton, formerly of Peoria, died in Grand Rapids, Michigan, from a middle cerebral artery stroke at 11:55 p.m. on Monday, February 1, 2016, at the age of 99 years, 3 months, 20 days (36,271 days). She was born on October 12, 1916 in Bellevue, Nebraska, the fourth child of Edward and Hazel Marie VanBuskirk Crippen's family of 11 children. She was descended from Edward and Ann Fuller, who arrived on the Mayflower in 1620. She grew up on farms in east central South Dakota. Hazel attended public schools in South Dakota, graduating from Woonsocket High School in 1934. She received her B.A. from Bradley University in 1954. Hazel met her husband of 66 years, D. Raleigh Carlton, at Wessington Springs College in Wessington Springs, South Dakota in 1937 and they were married in Woonsocket, South Dakota on March 11, 1944. Hazel was a Peoria resident from 1944 until moving to her son's home in Ada, Michigan in 2005, although they wintered in Lakeland, Florida in their retirement years. Hazel was a first grade teacher for 47 years. She began in 1938 with a one-room schoolhouse in Mayhew, South Dakota and then taught at a series of public schools in Iowa and Illinois, including Irving and Horace Mann in Clinton, IA and Logan, Laura, and Morris in Trivoli in Illinois. She retired from her position at Garfield School in Peoria in 1977. She founded and served as Director of the Peoria First Free Methodist Parkside School from 1977 to 1985 for which she was made Illinois Christian Education Worker of the Year. Throughout her life, her family was always most important, and she stayed in touch with some of her student teachers from Bradley her entire life. She had a special affinity for the education of children. Hazel Marie Carlton is survived by her sons, Richard Raleigh (Lynn) of Ada, Michigan, and Robert James (Arden Handler) of Evanston, Illinois; grandchildren, Michelle Soucy (Jay), KristA