Hazel V. Dean

Hazel Virginia Dean was a Seneca oral traditionalist and Faith Keeper of the Allegany Reservation Long House spiritual way of life. After thirty years of raising her three children, she returned to school at the request of her elders to learn the skills necessary to preserve the Seneca language and the culture it embodies for the generations yet to come. In 1983, she received her Doctorate in Linguistics from the University of Arizona in Tucson.

Before retirement, Ms. Dean served as the first oral traditionalist to work at the NYS Department of Education as the Supervisor of the Native American Indian Education Unit from March 1984 to December 1988. While working at the state level, she established the first Commissioner’s Advisory Committee on Native American Indian Education, coordinated and developed the first native-written, native-language syllabus “Ongwehowe:kha Native Languages for communication” and the first native-written Social Studies Guide “Haudenosaunee: Past, Present, and Future”.

A member of the Seneca Nation and Wolf Clan, Hazel was born in Coldspring, NY on the Allegany Indian Reservation on November 16, 1929 to Norman Russell and Marjorie Marie Jimerson.

In 1948, Hazel received an accounting and secretarial degree with honors from the Bryant and Stratton Business Institute in Buffalo, NY. At that time, she also worked as an Executive Secretary for General Mills, Inc. in Buffalo. Over the years, she worked as a staff assistant, accountant, office manager, and a perforator operator for various companies.

From 1961 to 1963, she served as a secretary for the Seneca Nation – later becoming the Seneca Language Translator and Bookkeeper. In this position, she assisted in all phases of the relocation of 132 Seneca families who had lost their homes and lands as a consequence of the Kinzua Dam construction. During this difficult time for the Seneca people, Hazel coordinated many TV documentaries and became one of the on-site interviewers for radio and TV personalities who were exploring the effects of the Dam construction on relocated families. At the time she entered college, she was serving as Acting Director and Cultural Program Coordinator/Language Teacher for an education program of the Seneca Nation.

When Hazel entered Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education, she had seen her own children through college. In 1978, she and her daughter, Jaquelyn, became the first Native American Indian mother and daughter graduates there. In addition to this distinction, Hazel was the fund raiser for the first Federal Indian Law Course to be taught at the University and was the Native American Indian member of the Subcommittee on Admissions.

While attending Harvard, one of her professors introduced her to a linguistics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where she enrolled in linguistics classes. At the MIT professor’s recommendation, she pursued a degree form the University of Arizona in Tucson, where she earned a Master’s degree in 1980 and a Doctorate in Linguistics in 1983. Her doctoral dissertation, a phonological anaylsys of Seneca which incorporated instrumental techniques difficult to master and interpret, was so revolutionary that her findings have caused linguists to revise their theories of phonology.

Through her efforts, Hazel earned a national and international reputation. She became the first Native American Indian to address a meeting of the Bilinguists from the Soviet Union. Later, she became the first Native American Indian to address an international meeting of linguists in Austria.

Despite her remarkable achievements and the many honors bestowed upon her, Hazel remained a traditional Seneca woman. Because her position as Longhouse Faith Keeper, she did not speak of her own achievements, but allows others to speak for her. Scholars and others describe her as a warm and generous human being. They speak of how she never tired of sharing her life and her cultural experiences. They talked about her skill for organization, her capacity for work, and her ability to get things done. Others were impressed with her creativity and how she was able to make Seneca language classes “come alive” for Indian children.

She is survived by one daughter, Jacquelyn Marie (John) Cheek, and one son, Robert LaMont (Ginger) Dean; two granddaughters, Charlotte Yerpestock and Kimberly Mae Dean, and two grandsons, Cameron and Quentin Dean; four great-grandchildren; a niece, Marjorie Marie Pettit; several daughters and sons throughout the world who called her friend, mother, grandmother, and auntie. We will never forget her charm, wit, and remarkable memory for people’s names.

She was predeceased by her youngest daughter, Michele “Midge”.

Friends may call at the Coldspring Longhouse beginning Saturday, September 28, 2024 and continuing all day Sunday.

Funeral services will be held at the Longhouse on Monday at 10am with Speakers of the Longhouse officiating.

Burial will be in Hillside Haven Cemetery, Salamanca, NY.

Funeral arrangements are under the direction of the O’Rourke & O’Rourke Inc Funeral Home, 25 River Street, Salamanca, NY.

E-condolences can be sent to orourke.orourkefh@gmail.com or posted to facebook.com/onofh.