George Gretchen Hatten

George Gretchen Hatten, beloved Mother, Grandmother, Great Grandmother, Aunt and friend left this earth on June 11th, 2024. Gretchen was born in Hinds County Mississippi in 1928, the youngest child of Emmette and Nona Mae Williams. She was named for her father’s best friend, George, and his German girlfriend Gretchen, who met during World War I and were unable to be united in America after the war.  (Why not Gretchen George???  We’ll never know.).

Since Gretchen was the youngest child it fell upon her to bring lunches out to the rest of the family working in the fields – she also milked the cows before she went to school (in a one room schoolhouse) and (as she put it) had to milk the same dang cows in the afternoon!!  She helped her Mom bake pies, pick vegetables, and gather eggs to take to Jackson MS to the market every weekend.  Her father was a sharecropper who eventually became a gravel truck driver and bought his own farm in Learned MS.

She met her husband, Jack Hatten, when she roomed with his cousin Dot at Mississippi State College for Women in 1948.  Jack was in the occupation forces in Japan and they became pen pals.  They married in 1950 and started the life of a career army family – Gretchen became a school librarian and they traveled throughout Europe and the United States, eventually  spending 9 years in Germany.   They had two children, Renee Mendola and Vance Hatten, and Gretchen retired from her final teaching assignment, Raymond High School in Raymond Mississippi in 1993.  They then bought a motorhome and continued to travel around the United States until 2006 when they declared themselves too old for that life and settled down in Alabama.  Gretchen moved to Anderson SC to be with her daughter Renee in 2022 and found peace and happiness at Dominion Senior Living Facility of Anderson.

Gretchen was full of life – she was known for her famous ‘health food” candy, her beautiful flowers, her champagne birthday toasts, and her many pink outfits.

Mrs. Hatten will be joining her parents, two sisters, Ruby Gordon Ward (Tom)  and Rosa Pittman (James), a brother, Rudolph Williams (Minerva), her husband Jack Hatten, son Vance Hatten and many more family and friends in heaven.  She will be lovingly missed by her daughter Renee, granddaughter Sofya Leras (James), great-grandchildren Stella Leras and Nicholas Leras, and many nieces and nephews.

Services will be held at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Clemson on Monday, June 24 at 2:30 PM.  In lieu of flowers please make contributions to the UUFC Minister’s Discretionary Fund, 226 Pendleton Road, Clemson, SC, 29631 (or go to UUFC.org and use the Donate button) or to the National Audubon Society.