With her husband, Douglas F. Storer, she wrote for Believe It Or Not and Amazing But True.
By CHRISTINA K. COSDON, Times Staff Writer
Published October 15, 2005
BELLEAIR - Hazel Edna Anderson Storer, who traveled the world as a young journalist and later gathered stories from around the world with her husband for the Ripley's Believe It Or Not and Amazing But True books, died Tuesday (Oct. 11, 2005) at her home in Belleair. She was 95.
Mrs. Storer's international news reporting began in 1929 when, at 20, the Associated Press sent her to Shanghai, China.
Two years later, during the Japanese air attack on the city, she and other Americans were taken to a compound by the Marines and given rifles and automatic weapons to defend themselves. But before the ground invasion began, they were able to escape on the last passenger ship leaving the city.
The incident was recalled by Mrs. Storer's goddaughter, Melba Saltarelli of Belleair.
"She had been everywhere and done everything and loved to talk about her travels," Mrs. Saltarelli said. "She remembered everything down to the last detail."
On one occasion, the Storers were invited to be guests of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor when he was governor of the Bahamas, Mrs. Saltarelli said. During the visit, the couple recorded an interview with the duke for a radio program.
After her husband died in 1985, Mrs. Storer retired. Mrs. Saltarelli, whose parents were best friends with Mrs. Storer's parents, began nightly phone chats that ended only when Mrs. Storer became ill earlier this year with cancer.
"We talked every night for 20 years about politics, about what was happening in the news - she was curious about everything and asked questions incessantly," Mrs. Saltarelli said. "She was like a second mother to me and simply the most interesting person I ever met."
The Storers' collection of radio and television scripts and interviews spanning 1922 to 1984 were given to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and are kept in the Louis Round Wilson Library Archives as "The Douglas F. Storer and Hazel Anderson Storer Historic Collection."
Mrs. Storer was born in New York City and moved to Belleair in 1969 from New Rochelle, N.Y., with her late husband. Survivors include a nephew, Bruce Anderson of Centerville, Va., a niece, Terri Ann Blaeuer of Annandale, Va.; and numerous cousins.
Hubbell Funeral Home of Belleair Bluffs handled the arrangements. Burial will be at Woodlawn Cemetery in New York City.
