Hammond, Walter Jonathan 1888-1919

HAMMOND, ANDREWS, SANDERS

Posted By: Marilyn Holmes
Date: 10/18/2014 at 10:08:19

The Grinnell (IA) Herald
Feb. 11, 1919

WALTER JONATHAN HAMMOND

Walter Jonathan Hammond was born at Des Moines, Iowa, on March 5, 1888, and nearly two years later his parents moved with the family to Grinnell. Blessed with a rugged constitution and a happy disposition, full of life and enthusiasm for all the varied activities of boyhood and young manhood he rapidly developed qualities, physical, mental and moral, that won him many friends. The fact that he was left fatherless at the age of seventeen years seemed to make him even more thoughtful of his mother and in many ways he tried to help lighten her burdens.

After completing his high school course he entered Grinnell College and graduated with the class of 1911. He left Grinnell soon after graduation for the Pacific Coast where he went in the hope of finding a place for himself in the business world. After engaging in work at a large lumber mill for about six months he entered Leland Stanford University where he completed a course in electrical engineering in 1913. Since that time he has held positions of responsibility in his chosen line of work and has won recognition and promotion by the California State Railway Commission in whose service he was engaged up to the time of his decease.

On June 29, 1916, he was united in marriage to Miss Ruth Andrews who was also a graduate of Leland Stanford and a former school girl friend in Grinnell. To this union was born a little daughter, Catherine, now almost a year old. Mrs. Hammond is a sister of Mrs. W.S. Sanders and belongs a family formerly well known in Grinnell.

On January 2, 1919, Walter was taken sick with Spanish Influenza and after a month's struggle with this disease which developed into pleuro-pneumonia the heart failed and the brave fight ended on the night of February 2nd.

In all these years of absence from the parental roof he has never failed up to the time of his last illness to send his mother each week a letter, rather an unusual record of filial devotion.

He leaves to mourn his loss, his wife and baby daughter, a mother, five brothers, and one sister besides a large circle of near relatives and many friends.

Owing to illness his wife was unable to take the long journey to be present at the funeral here; but short services were held in Berkeley and from there the remains were accompanied by his brother, Arthur, to Grinnell.

Funeral services were held Sunday afternoon from the home of Mrs. Hattie Hammond, mother of the deceased, conducted by Rev. E.M. Vittum. The college male quartet furnished music. The pall bearers were Cyril and Kreigh Carney, of Des Moines; Wallace and Carl Child, O.B. Mathews and Harry F. McMurray. Interment was in Hazelwood cemetery.