Belize RPCV Ann Hamman dies in Evansville Indiana
FORMER FOOD GURU AND EDITOR DIES
Jun 17, 2003 - Evansville Courier
Author(s): Andrea Preston, Courier & Press Staff Writer,
Prestona@Courierpress.Com
Evansville, Indiana - Henry Hamman remembers a time when he couldn't walk into an Evansville grocery store without someone recognizing his mother, Ann Hamman.
"She always made a point of going around to the stores and looking around at what things to buy," said the former Evansville, now Miami, resident. "That was her job."
Hamman had recurring nutritional education spots on local television and radio stations in the late 1950s and early 1960s, when she served as an extension agent for the Vanderburgh County Extension Office.
The former Evansville Press columnist and The Evansville Courier's assistant women's editor died June 11 in Homestead, Fla. She was 95.
Born Annie Laura Longley, on Oct. 27, 1907, in Pond Creek, Okla., she graduated from Oklahoma State University and the University of Chicago before enlisting in the Army.
Shortly after World War II started, Hamman enlisted in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps, and spent two years in North Africa and Italy. She was a first lieutenant assigned to the Signal Corps.
It was overseas where she met her future husband, Bernard Hamman, who was also in the Army.
Returning to the states, the couple then had their only son, who was born in 1946.
Hamman came to The Courier newspaper in 1967.
"Ann was a fantastic cook, and she was the neatest cook I've ever known," said assistant features editor Anne Schleper, who was a city hall reporter when Hamman was at The Courier. "She had a small apartment with a tiny kitchen when I knew her years ago, but she was efficient because as soon as she used a utensil, dish or bowl, she washed it and put it away. It was a good lesson for the beginning cook that I was then."
Hamman retired from the paper in 1972, shortly before she accepted a Peace Corps assignment in British Honduras.
"My mother was a pioneering woman, who was interested in changing the world and making a difference," her son said. "She never remarried. And it was women like her that make it possible for women in this generation."
Hamman was cremated. A service and burial are planned for early August at St. Andrew's-Sewanee School, 85 miles south of Nashville, Tenn.
A service as St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Miami is also being planned.
In lieu of flowers, donations can be made in her honor to St. Andrew's Sewanee School, 290 Quintard Road, Sewanee, Tenn. 37375- 3000.
