• General Notes

  FUNERAL ADDRESS
  FOR MRS MARGARET HAZLETT
  (1930-2008)
  MONEYDIG PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH , 6TH MAY 2008
  May the words of my lips and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing and acceptable in your sight, O God our rock and our redeemer.
  May I thank the Rev‟d David Allen, Convener of the vacancy in Moneydig for his kind invitation to take part at the funeral of my aunt, Mrs Margaret Hazlett. I know that the family have benefited from your pastoral care and concern for them in recent weeks and months and your care for them is something we all appreciate in the midst of your other busy duties.
  Today we meet in the name of our Lord Jesus to give thanks to God for the life of Margaret Elizabeth Hazlett and to extend our loving sympathy to her husband Sam; her children, David along with his wife Betty and their children Janet, Louise, Kathryn, Heather and William; Margaret‟s older daughter Alison along with her husband Carl and their children Jillian, Michael and Ellen; and Margaret‟s younger daughter, Barbara.
  The writer of perhaps that most famous of Psalms, the Twenty-Third, which we sang earlier, describes life as a journey. A journey where God is the travelling companion.
  The Lord is a shepherd.
  He leads.
  God is beside the writer, in good times beside still waters and even in the valley of death.
  It is God whose rod and staff – whose gentle leading and authority – bring comfort.
  Life is a journey.
  The journey of life began for Margaret Elizabeth Torrens on 11th December 1930, a second daughter born to John and Ethel Torrens at the Four Bushes. There was Molly and Margaret and then there would be Eileen and the twins, Joy and Jean. Today only Molly in South Africa remains, the rest, including my mother, having had life spans considerably shorter than their parents.
  My grandfather, Margaret‟s father, was I am told, a Victorian through and through. He entered married life late in the day and his children only ever saw him as an old man. His wife, my Granny Torrens came from the Bolton family outside Kilrea. Together theirs was a home of strict values. Sunday was observed as God‟s special day, not one for frivolity. It was Meeting, Sunday School and any time at home was to be spent reading the Bible. John Torrens would become the Senior Elder in this congregation of Moneydig. Between their two families Papa and Granny Torrens had a family tree unusually well laden with Presbyterian elders, ministers and even a Moderator or two. Torrenses of the Four Bushes was a home of love, hard work and discipline. They were hospitable and loving and caring. We cannot fully appreciate the lady whom we mourn today unless we understand that background where love and responsibility were nurtured.
  The Lord is the Shepherd who leads on the journey of life.
  And the Lord gave Margaret her unique qualities that saw her get on in this world. At school she was capable. After a while at Kilrea Public Elementary School, Margaret went to the Irish Society‟s School in Coleraine and from there to grammar school at Coleraine High School. Next came college in Belfast and thereafter a career with the then Belfast Bank, first in Belfast itself and then in Ballymoney and later Coleraine.
  The Torrenses, having sold the family farm at the Four Bushes, were living in Hazelbank, next door to Moneydig Manse.
  And it was from Hazelbank on 20th June 1953 that Margaret set out on the next part of her journey, as she left on her father‟s arm to come to this Meeting House to marry Mr Sam Hazlett.
  Theirs would be a marriage of nearly fifty-five years. A wonderful partnership of great mutual support, understanding and love.
  The new Mrs Hazlett started married life with the other members of the Hazlett family in their home at Moneydig. Any new bride living in the same house as in-laws faces pressure of one kind or another.
  But Margaret had a disposition that was always charming, good-natured, relaxed, open and gracious.
  And she must have needed all of those qualities of serenity in the heady 1950s and 1960s when it seemed people from all over Ulster made tracks for Moneydig to buy farm machinery from Sam Hazlett and Ivan Wilson. Those days of busyness could not always have been easy days for a young married couple.
  Soon Sam and Margaret were blessed with a family. David and Alison and Barbara. And there was another, a second son John Torrens Hazlett who died only a matter of weeks old, exactly half a century to the day before his Mother, on 3rd May 1958.
  To lose a child is something from which some can never recover full, that Margaret Hazlett coped as she did was no doubt due to her calm and gentle spirit.
  Back to her journey of life. In 1964 Sam bought Landmore and it was there that the family moved to live. Sam and Margaret turned into what was literally a barracks into a beautiful family home. A place where anyone, whether a passing Prime Minister of Northern Ireland or business people from near and far or friends and family were entertained capably and generously. Margaret was comfortable in anyone‟s company and could put everyone at ease. No-one could ever make her feel insecure.
  Life‟s journey saw Sam and Margaret move once more. In 1981 they moved to Grangemore in Claggan Park, which would be their final home together. Life for them took an easier pace. These were the times when they were led by the still waters. Margaret Hazlett helped charities; she supported Save the Children and she was on the committee of the Kilrea and Garvagh branch of Cancer Research.
  Now, Margaret and Sam could enjoy holiday times in Tenerife, but more than anything else, Margaret simply loved time with family.
  Margaret Hazlett lived for her family. Sam knows that today. And the joy she took in his busy life and in the lives of David and Alison and Barbara and their children was absolute. She knew and cared about all of her eight grandchildren and when great grandchildren – Hannah, Ruby and Isla appeared, she was delighted and felt truly blessed. She not only loved laughing with them, she even loved it when they laughed at her.
  And of course, in all of the journey of life, this place of worship was vitally important. Successive ministries in Moneydig were appreciated and supported by the Hazletts.
  Now you get lots of people today who think that the reason why the Church is declining in society is because it is out of touch. It needs, they say, to be jazzed-up, dumbed-down and sorted-out.
  They say things should be more touchy-feely and fuzzy-wuzzy.
  Margaret Hazlett was not one of those people.
  She held to Presbyterian tradition that things should be done decently and in order, not only because she was of an age that such things were felt, but genuinely because she believed that was the right and only way.
  So Margaret felt all ministers should look, sound and act ministerially - and boy does that put me under a bit of pressure today! But it was what you would expect from such a lady of constancy and graciousness.
  Well, it was the American author Alex Haley who said that „A death is like a library burning.‟ And with the passing of Auntie Margaret the whole family today has an acute sense of a loss of someone who had close contact with aunts and cousins and children that spanned not only generations but even continents.
  She simply knew a lot of stuff about a lot of family people.
  Her mind was amazing.
  She could tell you who was born when, whom they married and when, what their children‟s names were and when they were born.
  She was a walking library of personal names and dates of quite literally hundreds of people.
  And in the early minutes of Saturday 3rd of May that was all lost when Margaret left us. Her journey – here – ended.
  The one we have loved, we now lose for a while.
  Margaret‟s earthly journey – from the Four Bushes, to Hazelbank to Moneydig, to Landmore, to Grangemore is over, but our journeys will go on – enriched by her presence through that “love that wilt not let us go” and by our own sweet memories.
  It was the American preacher Henry Van Dyke who said:
  Time is too slow for those who wait,
  Too swift for those who fear
  Too long for those who grieve
  Too short for those who rejoice
  But for those who love, time is eternity.
  We here today who mourn must take comfort that the writer of Psalm 23 says, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.”
  The valley of death is not a place in which to set up camp permanently.
  The Psalmist walks through it.
  And death is not an all-conquering hero.
  The Psalmist even calls death a “shadow”.
  “Even though I walk through the shadow of death I will fear no evil.”
  St Paul, writing in the light of the glorious resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ says something even more triumphant, “Death, where is thy sting? Grave where is thy victory?”
  Our great Christian hope is that the journey of life here does not end.
  To all who trust in Christ as Saviour and Friend there is forgiveness and reconciliation and mercy and grace.
  There is peace with heaven and sins forgiven.
  And for the believer in Christ Jesus, touched by the power of the Holy Spirit, situations of grief and uncertainty are transformed into peace and glory.
  For all of us, the days ahead will be tinged with loss undoubtedly, but – let us pray – not without hope.
  I looked to Jesus and I found
  In him my star, my son
  And in that light of life I’ll walk,
  Till travelling days are done
  In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Details of Margaret 's family with Samuel Hazlett