Eadie Wetzel Davis - Wetzel Foundation

Eadie

As a little girl in Evanston, Ill, Eadie Wetzel had so much energy that her parents didn’t know what to do with her, and she drove her siblings, Susan and Rick, crazy. Her parents, Ross and Janice Wetzel, took the suggestion of their family physician to enroll her in an activity that might help burn off some of that extra energy, and they decided to get her into swimming. By the age of fifteen she had broken the world record in the 200 meter freestyle. She became a member of the 1968 US Olympic team in Mexico City. She went to the University of New Mexico as one of the first women in the nation to receive an athletic scholarship, where she met her first husband, Erik Hansen. She married Erik in 1976, and became a mother to her sons Whitney and Casey Hansen. Throughout her life, she was known for her vibrancy, artistic eye, and endless amounts of energy. It also should be noted that she loved to dance, and was an enormous fan of Motown and Funk music. At sixty, she’d begun a beautiful new chapter. She’d married a wonderful man, Mike Davis, and was expecting her first grandchild. Then it was taken away. She was diagnosed with Frontotemporal Dementia and ALS. Eadie passed away surrounded by her family on January 10, 2015. She will be remembered as someone who lived life fiercely, who never apologized for who she was, and who gave endless amounts of love to those lucky individuals who shared in her life. It is in her honor that we have started The Wetzel Foundation. Please help us celebrate her life by helping give hope to all those effected by the diseases from which she suffered.