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Obituary
Elizabeth Ann Hacker, 74, of Grosse Ile, left us on Wednesday, March 22, 2023, surrounded by family and loved ones. She was born in Mt. Clemens, MI on August 16, 1948, the daughter of Betty Couglin and Eugene Hacker.
Liz lived life to the fullest. Her bold, boisterous personality was unmistakable and irresistible. Irish to the core, to know Liz was to love her. Her smile lit up the room and her laughter was contagious. Liz’s generosity and kindness knew no bounds, and she made an unforgettable impression on everyone she encountered.
What Liz enjoyed most about life was spending time with family and friends, and she was blessed with an abundance of both. She was a collector of people and she made you feel like family. Everyone referred to her as “Aunt Liz” and thought of her in that way. Each of her brothers’ nine children considered Liz a second mother. She was the hippest, coolest aunt, and was incessantly bragging about her nieces and nephews, and later her great-nieces and nephews, whether they were blood related or picked up along the way. Said one of her children, speaking for all, “She loved us and we knew it. And we loved her and she knew it.”
Liz was raised on a farm in rural Clinton Township, the second among four siblings and the only girl. She learned to fight and scrap from a young age, and never forgot her humble beginnings or the sense of possibility and promise that her parents instilled in her. Liz came of age in an era when women were expected to be secretaries or typists. But Liz had little use for outdated conventions. As would come to be a distinguishing feature throughout her life, Liz did it her way.
She worked her way through Wayne State University and then became one of the first women to graduate from the Detroit College of Law. After the bar exam, she was called to public service at the U.S. Department of Justice. There she rose to positions of authority and influence, serving as a trial attorney, chief attorney and assistant regional counsel for the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Liz never forgot where she came from, always looking out for the greater good and fighting injustice wherever she saw it.
In 1995, she was appointed a U.S. Immigration Judge, where she served with distinction on the federal bench until her retirement as senior judge in 2013. Liz’s celebrated career was memorialized in the United States Congressional Record by legendary Michigan Senator Carl Levin.
Her nearly 20 years of service on the federal bench were the most satisfying of her professional career. As a former prosecutor, she held litigants to her own exacting standards; when the government or defense counsel fell short in her estimation, Liz’s colorful half-moon reading glasses would slide down to the tip of her nose, and she would unleash hell upon the hapless counsel who dared to argue a motion unprepared.
From early in her tenure, colleagues recognized her expansive and intricate knowledge of the law, her judgment, wisdom and temperament. Because of these qualities, Liz was frequently assigned the toughest, most high-profile, high-stakes cases in the district. Indeed, she once threatened to hold Congressman John Conyers in contempt for disrupting her proceedings. In Liz’s courtroom, no one was above the law.
She met the love of her life, Brian Munson, in 1980 and they married in 1985. Their life together was filled with exotic, thrill-seeking hobbies and travel (Samurai training in Japan, roller coaster parks, race tracks, golf), fierce family pinochle games and spontaneous celebrations. They delighted in each other and in their precious standard poodle, Orca. After her beloved Brian, and then Orca, passed in 2022, a new baby poodle Kyra filled her last year with wonder. The love, joy, kindness and laughter that Liz and Brian shared were infectious and left an impression on everyone they touched.
A Motor City girl at heart, Liz loved cars, the faster the better. A banana yellow VW bug from her youth was eventually traded in for a 1973 cherry red Alfa Romeo Spider, acquired when she was living in California. Brian ultimately surprised her with a classic Maserati (also cherry red) in the mid-1990s that she purportedly took above 150 MPH heading south on I-75. Shortly thereafter, Liz earned a NASCAR racing certification from the Charlotte Motor Speedway.
But it was in the kitchen where Liz truly shined. Perfecting family recipes and inventing new ones of her own, Liz was nowhere more at home than with an apron around her waist, a spoon in her hand, lording over several pots and pans simmering away on her Viking range. She was a personal chef to her frequent dinner guests, catering to her companions’ particular tastes and fancies. She purchased every kitchen gadget and piece of culinary machinery known to mankind; her house was easily mistaken for a Williams-Sonoma test kitchen.
She and her older brother James both shared a passion for gourmet cooking, which blossomed into a sporting rivalry that culminated in the “Great Garnish War,” an early 1990s food battle in which Jim and Liz would carve radish roses, apple swans and evermore elaborate decorations to adorn holiday meals. The war was ultimately settled by a family-imposed armistice after Liz’s “disproportionate, preposterous escalation” (Jimmy’s words) consisting of an ice sculpture delivered to her older brother’s Thanksgiving dinner table in 1993.
An avid knitter, with a love of luxury yarn, she always had a blanket, hat or scarf at the ready whenever a new baby arrived. A voracious reader, Liz was always the first to finish the new bestseller; she would send boxes of books she had finished to family, and no one enjoyed a good legal thriller more than Liz.
Family members remember Liz as “a pillar in my life”; “never missing a birthday”; “always giving the perfect gift”; “having a laugh that filled a room”; “she never missed a moment with my kids” and that “we called each other sister most of the time, and as far as I was concerned, she was my sister.”
Liz was preceded in death by her parents, Betty and Eugene Hacker, her brothers, James and David, and her loving husband of 37 years, Brian Munson. She is survived by her brother Timothy, and her nieces and nephews Michael, Brian, Megan, Joel, Emily, Patrick, Noah, Lizzie and Daniel.
A visitation will be held from 1:00-4:00 p.m. with a memorial service at 4:00 p.m. on Friday, April 14 at the Michigan Memorial Funeral Home, 30895 W Huron River Drive in Flat Rock, MI 48134.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests you send bottles of 2012 Dom Perignon Vintage Blanc, a case of Bushmills (Protestant) Irish Whiskey, and an Iberico ham shoulder leg cured for no less than 24 Months to the Irish wake on Friday evening, where the family will continue to celebrate Liz’s life and legacy, which came to an end far too quickly for any of us to possibly contemplate. For those inclined for a more traditional donation, gifts can also be made to Michigan Standard Poodle Rescue.
