She took lead role when she had to

With mate missing in war, colonel's wife reached deep inside, became a leader

DURHAM -- The rap on the door came at 8:30 one spring night in 1967. Peeking outside, Hazel Gaddis recognized someone in uniform and burst into tears.

Was her husband Norman, the first full colonel to be shot down in Vietnam, alive or dead? No one knew.

Before that moment, Hazel Gaddis had been a loving mother, a dutiful wife, a homemaker. She conjured up images of the starched, smiling Mrs. Cleaver in "Leave it to Beaver" with her renowned pumpkin and pecan pies, her legendary fruitcakes. But the news that her husband was missing in action changed her.

Some people assess a situation, figuring out how they can take charge. Hazel Gaddis was not an innate leader.

But she decided to become one, serving as the North Carolina coordinator for the National League of Families, which sought to pressure the government to negotiate the release of prisoners of war.

You just didn't say no to her quiet determination. When she traveled to Washington with the National League of Families, she would turn on a sugary Southern accent that was never heard at other times.

Hazel Ketner Gaddis died Oct. 14 of complications from myelofibrosis, a bone marrow disorder. She was 80.

Where others wanted to vent, she craved action. She didn't indulge in victimhood. It wasn't in her practical nature. Instead, she helped heal her own wounds by helping others whose family members had been captured or killed.

If alerted that a family was going through the same anguish as hers, and she'd call the day after they heard the news to provide support. She became a public speaker about POW-MIA issues. And she made sure that her younger son, Tony, worked toward Eagle Scout, just as his father had wanted him to.

"She was devastated, but she moved quickly to acceptance," Tony Gaddis said. "I don't remember having discussions with her about did we think he was alive or dead. She just accepted the state of not knowing."

Hazel Gaddis was born in Knoxville, Tenn., one of three children of parents who worked for a dry cleaning business. She met her husband when she was 12. Their first date featured a football game followed by a dozen hot Krispy Kreme doughnuts and a gallon of milk. They stayed married for 62 years, spending their final 13 in Durham.

Their wedding took place during World War II. When Norman was called to active duty in the Air Force in 1949, Hazel, like many a military wife, packed up the house alone and moved the family.

They landed all over the world -- Munich, England, Georgia, Tennessee. In 1966, they moved to Winston-Salem, where Hazel's parents lived, in preparation for Norman's departure for Vietnam. A month later, Norman left.

He was lucky enough to get leave to come back for his son Steven's wedding in March 1967. He saw his family for three days.

Two months later, he disappeared.

The Pentagon gathered news clips from around the world and shared them with the Gaddis family. One article said he'd been killed; another said he was captured.

"I think she went on the faith that he was alive and proceeded to act on that," said Steven Gaddis.

Another year ticked by and most of another.

Then, right before Christmas in 1970, a letter arrived from Vietnam. No one seems to remember where it is any longer, yet no one can forget what it said.

Over the next few years, a handful of letters trickled in.

Then, in March 1973, Norman Gaddis returned. With the family whole again, Hazel Gaddis quietly stepped back into her traditional role. She moved the family out to Arizona, where she assumed the role of wing commander's wife at Williams Air Force Base. Once again, she planned the family's social calendar, cleaned, cooked, played bridge.

In her years as a Vietnam-era mover and shaker, she'd grown accustomed to speaking her mind. So she wasn't reluctant to enlighten her husband in the ways the world had evolved in the six years he'd been confined.

Not long after Norman Gaddis' release, his older son flew to Arizona to visit. He had slightly long hair and a bit of a hippie affect, accentuated by his day job -- taking care of his kids, who were 6 months and 2 1/2 years old at the time.

Norman Gaddis reprimanded him: You need to cut your hair and get a real job.

Family lore holds that Hazel Gaddis, acting sergeant, took her husband aside to set him straight. "Dear," she said, "things have changed since you've been gone."

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Hazel Gaddis is survived by her husband, Norman, two sons, seven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

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