HAYS, Mary Ellen

Wickenburg Sun, Wickenburg, Arizona March 3, 1988, page 2 Editor’s note: The following tribute to Mary Ellen Hays was written by Gloria Hinkel, president of Wickenburg’s Friends of Music. When the Wise Owl Center and Community Action Program office recently honored Mary Ellen Hays as a volunteer – they knew they were speaking of and to a woman who was always ready to help. “If we had a super volunteer category, May Ellen would have qualified, first and foremost,” said Mary Ackley, director of the CAP office. “She encouraged ad enhanced the day–to-day existence of so many people.” Mary Ellen met and married Arts Hays 50 years ago, after moving to Pontiac, Mich. as a young child. It was there she began her volunteer interest in the arts, and in helping the handicapped. With her husband she helped form the Pontiac Art Society, and she also worked with the Birmingham Art Society and Ann Arbor Symphony. Perhaps her most impressive efforts was in the area of aphasia and deafness. Refusing to believe that her own daughter would not talk, she developed a style that over came the problem and went on to help other children with the same handicaps. The Hays’ came to Wickenburg in 1969; her husband had Parkinson’s disease, but Mary Ellen encouraged Art to keep painting and even switch hand when his tremor worsened. The couple was active in the Wickenburg Art Club, then joined the Camera Club and Rock Hound Club, enabling Art to photograph locations and subjects for his painting. In 1974, her Desert Cypress neighbor, Maxine Thompson, discovered a Chamber Music Ensemble of retirees in Sun City, who would play concerts for transportation costs. Mary Ellen tackled the Town Hall, asking for support. Then-mayor Curt Arnett offered the Community Center as a possibility; he suggested Gloria Hinkel to help promote the idea. Following a meeting around Mary Ellen’s kitchen table, an agreement was reached to apply the tab and test audience response. That was December, 1974 and this Sunday March 6, the 96th free Friends of Music concert will be staged. Over the past 14 years Mary Ellen Hays filled every needed job on the FOM committee—from treasurer, seating and transportation advisor for the handicapped, party coordinator, art club liaison to fund raiser . . . as well as original member of the Board of Directors. She last worked with the entertainment committee at FOM’s Jan. 23 concert. In recent years, her interests broadened. She helped form a Parkinson’s disease support group in Sun City. She diligently visited victims in nursing homes and worked with family members. All the while, her husband Art, who preceded her in death, was in the community nursing home; she worked daily with him and took time to visit other patients there, too. Was Mary Ellen unique, is the question friends ask. Invariable, the answer is yes! She did not believe the work impossible, and she worked unceasingly to made god things happen. We’ll miss her; say her friends . . and so will Wickenburg. Services will be at 10 a.m. Friday at St. Alban Episcopal Church for Mary Ellen Hays, 74, of Wickenburg, who died Feb. 27 in Wickenburg. Mrs. Hays was born April 8, 1913, in Cleveland, Ohio. She had lived in Arizona for 19 years, moving to Wickenburg in 1969. She was a member of the Wickenburg Art Club, Wickenburg Rock Club, Friends of Music, Parkinson’ Disease Support Group of Sun City, Wickenburg Camera Club, and Action Linkage. She helped organize and renovate the first Wise Owl Building on Tegner Street, was a founding member of Friends of Music, and a lifelong member of St. Alban Episcopal Church. Survivors include two sons, William, of Metamora, Mich. Edward, of Walled Lake, Mich.; a daughter, Mary Edith, of Redway, Calif.; and eight grandchildren.