Lester D. Hamm

CMSgt Lester David Hamm

March 12, 1933 – February 18, 2022

My dad was born in White Bluff, Tennessee on the date of Franklin Roosevelt’s first fireside chat.  His parents, Jack and Edna Hamm raised him and his sisters and brother in various towns in the south but mostly in West Nashville.  As a child he loved the movies and comic books and worked at Hudson’s store on 28th Avenue doing a little bit of everything, delivering groceries on his Cushman motor scooter. He attended Cohn High School.  The best thing that ever happened to him was to receive a draft notice from our Uncle Sam in 1953.  He was sent to Germany on a troop ship, the first of three tours there.  He attended cable splicing school there, beginning his long career in communications.

In 1957 he married my mom, Sylvia Pauline Hurt and switched to the Air Force.  No more sleeping on the cold hard ground.  Together they moved all over the world, serving two more tours at Ramstein AB Germany where I was born in 1961, as well as assignments to Patrick AFB, Florida, Kelly AFB, Texas, Hickam AFB, Hawaii and Scott AFB, Illinois. He also had many TDY assignments all over the world. Our family loved the adventure of military life   He also served a tour in Vietnam where he was awarded the Bronze Star during the TET offensive.  During that tour he was also honored to escort the body of his young cousin, Marine Lance Corporal Eddie Dean Hamm home for burial.

In 1980 it was time to retire from the Air Force with 28 years of service and he and my mom came home to Tennessee.  Before he even received his first retirement check he started to work at Southeastern Telecomm where he enjoyed installing telephone systems all over Nashville and the surrounding area.

He loved keeping his vehicles shiny and new and keeping his yard mowed.  He enjoyed the fellowship of coffee drinkers at the Hermitage Hardees and until recently a trip across town for lunch at Wendell Smith’s in his old neighborhood.

In the last few years his body began deteriorating but he made a valiant effort worthy of an old soldier.  I love him so much and will miss him, but I am grateful that he kept his independence and his beloved home until the end. I am grateful for the chance to care for him during this time.  It was hard for him to be as he called it, “squired around” by his daughter.

Visitation will be March 2, 2022 from 10:30am ~ 12:30am at Harpeth Hills Funeral Home burial will follow at Middle Tennessee Veterans Cemetery at 1:00pm.