I know that Harriet Hilliard was the stage name she adapted after her father's middle name as far back as her teens but I wonder if Ozzie ever called her 'Peggy'. Having legal skills [and evidently helping using them to end her early 1st marriage], Ozzie would have had to have known her original birth name. . Also added to the puzzle is the fact that her own mother Hazel Dell McNutt Snyder would be buried under the name of 'Hazel D. Hilliard' in 1971 so does this mean that Mrs. Snyder legally changed her own surname to 'Hilliard' after Harriet's father separated from her- and did Mrs. Snyder AKA Mrs. Hilliard not call her only child by her original name thereafter? And did Harriet ever express whether or not she hated 'Peggy' or whether or not she wished someone would call her that again.
On a similar note, it should be noted that Jack Benny's wife originally named Sadye Marks became so identified with the radio personality she played that she legally changed HER name to Mary Livingstone on the grounds that 'even my husband only calls me that'.

I know that Harriet Hilliard was the stage name she adapted after her father's middle name as far back as her teens but I wonder if Ozzie ever called her 'Peggy'. Having legal skills [and evidently helping using them to end her early 1st marriage], Ozzie would have had to have known her original birth name. . Also added to the puzzle is the fact that her own mother Hazel Dell McNutt Snyder would be buried under the name of 'Hazel D. Hilliard' in 1971 so does this mean that Mrs. Snyder legally changed her own surname to 'Hilliard' after Harriet's father separated from her- and did Mrs. Snyder AKA Mrs. Hilliard not call her only child by her original name thereafter? And did Harriet ever express whether or not she hated 'Peggy' or whether or not she wished someone would call her that again.
On a similar note, it should be noted that Jack Benny's wife originally named Sadye Marks became so identified with the radio personality she played that she legally changed HER name to Mary Livingstone on the grounds that 'even my husband only calls me that'.

I'm going to see if I follow you on this. Her birth name Peggy Lou Snyder. Then she changed it to her Harriet and used her fathers Middle name Hilliard for her new last name. Harriet Hilliard. Her mother died 1971. Gee she only died a few years before Ozzie.. Then the mother is buried with the name Hazel Dell Mcnutt. One of those must be a maiden name. The last name she used is her husband middle name. OH did Mrs and Mrs Snyder divorce? I wonder why the divorced woman would go with her exs middle name. YOU do have a puzzle, PRACTZ

I'm going to see if I follow you on this. Her birth name Peggy Lou Snyder. Then she changed it to her Harriet and used her fathers Middle name Hilliard for her new last name. Harriet Hilliard. Her mother died 1971. Gee she only died a few years before Ozzie.. Then the mother is buried with the name Hazel Dell Mcnutt. One of those must be a maiden name. The last name she used is her husband middle name. OH did Mrs and Mrs Snyder divorce? I wonder why the divorced woman would go with her exs middle name. YOU do have a puzzle, PRACTZ


OK, here goes:
In 1909, Roy Hilliard Snyder and his wife Hazel Dell McNutt Snyder had their only child Peggy Lou Snyder and the parents would perform under Roy's middle name as their onstage surname. Sometime in Peggy's teens, Roy split from Hazel [though I'm not sure they were ever legally divorced or were just permanently separated ] and sometime after that point Peggy started performing under the name 'Harriet Hilliard' and later on, herself briefly married someone described as 'an abusive comedian' but whose name seems to have been lost but to legal documents [and whether Harriet herself married him as 'Peggy Snyder SOMEBODY' or 'Harriet Hilliard SOMEBODY'] is unclear. In 1935, Harriet married Ozzie Nelson[and, again, I'm not sure whether she had ALREADY legally changed her name to Harriet Hilliard by that point] but for the next seventeen years Harriet was billed as 'Harriet Hilliard' [NOT Nelson] right through through their radio program up to the 1952 feature movie "Here Comes the Nelsons" but from the TV series "AoO&H" onwards, she was consistently billed as 'Harriet Nelson' [and, as I said, named her 2nd son Eric Hilliard Nelson and her youngest grandson Sam has his the middle name of his paternal-maternal great-grandfather as his own middle name]. Of course, it should be noted that before "AoO&H", Harriet WAS the bigger star of the pair.
Anyway, when Harriet's mother died in 1971, she was buried under the name of 'Hazel D. Hilliard' [and the initial wasn't spelled out]. Harriet's father Roy died in 1951 but what name HE was buried under, I'm not sure.
All-in-all, it would be interesting to find out whether Harriet's mother Hazel [or anyone else] called her 'Peggy' after her teens and whether Harriet ever missed her original given name. Yeah, it's QUITE a puzzle.

OK, I managed to get one for my personal use to see what light he may have shed on this [and other Nelson subjects] and what Ozzie had to say in 1973 re Harriet's birth name and parentage actually made things murkier than had he left well enough alone, IMO.
For one thing when Ozzie started to discuss her , her gave her name as Harriet Hilliard as though that had been her birth name and said her parents were Roy and Hazel McNutt Hilliard and had been established performers. OK but then he admitted that Roy's original surname had been Snyder but 'he changed it to Hilliard when he was twenty'. Perhaps Harriet's father had started performing under that name but he evidently was still using Snyder as his legal surname when he and Hazel had their daughter because WAS her original surname but Ozzie refused to admit that [much less cop to 'Peggy Lou' having been her given name]. If he truly wanted to hide the 'Snyder' side, why did he admit that as her father's original surname and why wouldn't he have considered that readers wouldn't have had much trouble putting together what HER name originally had via that admission. Of course, he left out her birth year [ to say nothing of her first marriage and divorce] and after Harriet starts her performing career as a toddler, Roy disappears from the narrative altogether. I mean really disappears as there's absolutely no hint as to his fate thereafter- not even a clue about when or why he exited Harriet's life much less whether he separated from or divorced her mother Hazel. To Ozzie's credit, he paints a very affectionate tribute to his [then]recently deceased mother-in-law who, by his account, was an integral part of the Nelson family's life and even largely helped raise David and Ricky when he and Harriet had to travel during their earliest years. Other accounts cite that Roy Hilliard died in 1951 [long after Harriet had become famous in her own right] but if he ever saw his daughter after her early years or met his son-in-law or grandsons,this was not mentioned by Ozzie.

I may give more details re my POV of Ozzie's autobio later but, overall, it seemed like having a long convo at a bar or diner with a charming old friend who was happy to talk about himself but wasn't always above being vague or even lying about some of the less pleasant actual details. Still, it captured what how he felt about many events in his life and family's lives even if his POV wasn't always strictly the truth. Oh, and I had no doubt that, for all his faults, he DID sincerely love Harriet, the boys and their growing family.