Born on the Fourth of July, business pioneer and downtown Tacoma survivor Hazel Winfield Zweibel Farber died peacefully Thursday in Seattle at age 90.

Spanning seven decades, Farber owned and operated LeRoy Jewelers, established 68 years ago.

“She was a continuous beacon of light in that part of downtown. She never abandoned the city,” Tacoma Mayor Bill Baarsma said.

Farber was an East Coast schoolteacher’s daughter who graduated cum laude with a degree in Spanish from Baltimore’s Goucher College. She had been a woman in college when women were rarely seen in higher education. She had been a Jewish woman in college at a time when persons of her faith were not always welcome.

She came West in 1941 on the arm of the man she loved, and together she and Irving Farber raised a family and built a business that still prospers.

Farber watched as Tacoma grew, as it busied itself with commerce and war. She watched, during the 1960s, as shops and department stores surrendered the downtown core. Even as foot traffic disappeared, she did not join the retreat to suburbs and malls.

“She was the only one – the rest all left. It takes durability and strength to stay,” said the late Erling Mork, longtime Tacoma city manager, upon Farber’s 2006 retirement.

She had a family to raise and employees to support.

Said Hazel Farber, as she retired, “You just had to continue on.”

At a time of racial divide, she welcomed people equally into her store and into her life. At a time when women were thought unable to conduct retail business, she earned an expertise in gemstones and shared her knowledge with customers.

Even that was unconventional, said her son Steph on Friday. Knowledge of gems was kept “in the trade,” he said, and was not widely shared with the public. “She knew that we would do better if customers knew what they were looking at. She was a natural teacher.”

“She always had time to listen. She was interested in everyone’s story,” said daughter-in-law Phyllis Harrison, co-owner of LeRoy Jewelers and the downtown Tacoma Art Stop.

“There isn’t a day that goes by when somebody doesn’t come in and ask for Mrs. Farber,” Steph said.

In an interview following her retirement, Hazel recalled a long-ago conversation overheard in a Tacoma hotel bar, where a sales rep proclaimed, “A dame run a jewelry store? It’ll never happen.”

It happened.

She leaves two sons, Jim and Steph; and three granddaughters, Rachel, Rebecca and Shoshana.

At the end of her life, she could recite the names of each of the 18 dogs who shared her family home. According to Steph, she remained ever-elegant and concerned with the welfare of those she loved.

Services will begin at 2 p.m. Sunday at Home of Peace Cemetery, 5421 Steilacoom Blvd. S.W. in Tacoma.

C.R. Roberts: 253-597-8535

c.r.roberts@thenwestribune.com