Hazel Phillips Butterfield, 1935
B.A., Denison University
Ph.D., The Ohio State University
Optometrist and Community Servant
Zanesville, Ohio
Citation awarded June, 2000
Hazel Phillips Butterfield has contributed a lifetime of professional and community service to her home town of Zanesville, Ohio.
Hazel graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Denison with a degree in mathematics in 1935, and a year later married her Denison sweetheart, David B. Butterfield ’35. Her adult life was marred by early tragedy when David was killed during World Ear II aboard the U.S.S. Hancock. He had become an optometrist, a career that the young widow now chose to pursue in the wake of her husband’s death. In 1945 both Hazel and her brother Own M. Phillips ’29 enrolled in the School of Optometry at The Ohio State University, graduating in 1947 and going into practice in Zanesville.
Now in her fifty-third year of professional service, Hazel has been a mainstay of the Zanesville professional and volunteer communities for over half a century. She devotes herself to a number of community interests, including the Shinnick Education Scholarship Foundation, on whose Board she has served since 1952. She has established her own scholarship, the Butterfield & Phillips Memorial Award, for nontraditional-aged college students. Hazel is a member and President of the Development Board of the Helen Purcell Home in Zanesville, and in that capacity she has been instrumental in raising almost a quarter of a million dollars to benefit the Home. Hazel has also been active for many years in the work of her church, Grace Methodist. On the occasion of her 50th anniversary in professional service, Hazel received the Thomas Service Award from the Muskingum County Community Foundation or outstanding volunteer and philanthropic contributions to her community. She has also served her alma mater as a fundraiser in several campaigns, including her 1935 Golden Anniversary Reunion Fund.
Hazel’s brother, Denison alumnus Dr. Owen S. Phillips ’29, passed away in 1977.
