Person:Walter Hamp (1)

Walter Noe Hamp was born in Flint, Mich., on April 30, 1921. He is survived by wife, Patricia; a son, Douglas, and daughter-in-law Gail; a grandson, Iain, and Iain’s wife, Ginger.

A child of the Great Depression, Walter was forced to spend many hours after school working odd building jobs, hunting and fishing in order to supplement the family table, but he was an avid reader and learner well into the night.

As a teen, he was employed by the Works Progress Administration as a janitor for his high school where he concurrently became valedictorian. He built his first house when he was just 17.

Soon after the attack on Pearl Harbor, he joined the U.S. Army and was eventually sent on the converted troop ship, Queen Mary to North Africa and England where he served with the 8th Army Air Force.

While at St. Andrews University for an Army-sponsored course, he met his future bride, Patricia Trayner Burgher. Walter frequently spent up to 20 hours on bomb-dodging trains between England and Scotland to court her.

They were married in August 1944. After the war, Patricia came to America with a lot of other war brides on the same Queen Mary that had delivered Walter to her. Their only child, Douglas, was born at the end of 1947. Months later they took Douglas back to Scotland for a stay of two years while Walter sold ironmongery through the chilly Borders.

Then it was off to warmer climes in Australia for seven years where he and “Pat” ran a distributorship for an American building supply company.

Returning to America, Walter took up home building on a grandfathered contractor’s license and managed the James Lumber Co. in Flint. He loved teaching Sunday school to kindergartners, because, as he said, they were always “filled with wonder”.

Walter, Patricia, Douglas and his wife, Gail, and their son Iain moved again for warmth to Sierra Vista in 1980. Walter soon became an avid golfer and gardener. At the age of 79, when he could no longer do these things, he took up writing for children’s magazines.

He was above all else a generous, loving and caring man who had a particular soft spot for the young and defenseless. Publishers immediately recognized his gentle spirit, his empathy, and his sweet sense of humor. His work has been published in Ladybug, Cricket and Spider and several other magazines. He will be sorely missed by family and friends who are sustained in the knowledge that he is welcomed home into the arms of God.

Douglas Hamp (Copyright © 2009 The Sierra Vista Herald)