Edwin Hughes Hammond

Edwin Hughes (Ed) Hammond, age 91, passed away on March 2 following a short illness. He was devoted husband of Elizabeth Mills Hammond, his wife and partner of 69 years. He was a caring, interested, good-humored, and generous son, father and grandfather, scholar and teacher, writer, chorister, and colleague, friend, parish member, and neighbor. He was an enthusiastic member of the University of Tennessee community for four decades. With Elizabeth, he was a faithful member of The Episcopal Church of the Ascension in Knoxville, where he was a Lector and member of the Choir. Ed was born on January 8, 1919 in Ann Arbor, Michigan to Harry E. and Bessie Rose Hammond. He was raised in Columbia, Missouri near the campus of the University of Missouri, where his father was a Professor of Physics. He had a boyhood blessed with parents of wide-ranging intellect and humor, an older brother and companion, Bill, the woods, creeks, and fields of a small town and nearby scout camps, vacations by railroad among the rocks and wildlife of the Rocky Mountains, the excitement of a college campus, the magic of radio, national magazines, and mail order catalogs, and, in all, the innocence, energy, and new machines and technologies of the 1920s and early 1930s. He graduated from Hickman High in Columbia in 1935, in the midst of the Great Depression, and that same fall entered the University of Missouri, where he fell in love with fellow student Elizabeth and spent two years in ROTC training. They graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1939, Ed with a degree in Geography. Beginning his graduate study of Geography at the University of Wisconsin (Madison) in 1939, Ed continued it in 1940 at the University of California (Berkeley). Ed and Elizabeth married in Columbia December 28, 1940. Student life in Berkeley gradually was overtaken by the attack on Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941. Ed accepted a position in Washington, DC, as a geographer in the Office of Strategic Services, predecessor of today’s CIA, where he participated in intelligence and mapping exercises that preceded US and allied military activities in both the European and Pacific war theaters. In November 1942 he enlisted in the U.S. Naval Reserve, and was trained in 1943 at the U.S. Naval Academy as a meteorologist for the Navy. In June 1943, Ed and Elizabeth were blessed with the birth of Janet Elizabeth. In July 1944, Ed began service as an Aerology Officer, Division Officer, and Watch Officer on the seaplane tender USS St. George, “mother ship” to a squadron of 15 seaplane reconnaissance bombers supporting the Pacific Fleet. In February 1945, while Ed was at sea, Elizabeth gave birth to Richard Edwin in Columbia, MO. With the St. George, Ed saw duty in the closing stages of the Pacific war at Saipan, the Palaus, and Guam and, in April-June 1945, at Karama Retto in support of the Okinawa invasion, where the US fleet, including the St. George, was attacked by Japanese fighters, torpedo bombers, and kamikaze planes, one of which hit the St George, and additionally endured a great typhoon. In this period, Ed flew combat area reconnaissance missions as weather and intelligence analyst for sea/air operations, for which he was awarded the Naval Air Medal. His missions included flights over Nagasaki and Hiroshima within days after the dropping of the atomic bombs. Returning to the US in December 1945, Ed was honorably discharged as a Lieutenant in March 1946. He served into the 1950s in the Naval Reserve. In 1995 Ed completed a detailed memoir of the war experience, entitled “War: Waves, Wings, and Weather, A Personal Recollection of Experiences in WW II and Its Era”. On returning to civilian life, Ed resumed studies and teaching at UC Berkeley, where he completed his doctoral dissertation in Physical Geography. A third child, Lawrence Alan, was born in Oakland, CA in September1948. Ed’s career in university teaching and research subsequently took him to University of Nebraska (Lincoln) in 1948-49, the University of Wisconsin (Madison)(1949-1964), Syracuse University (1964-1970), and the University of Tennessee (Knoxville), 1970 until retirement in 1987. At Wisconsin, he was co-author of major revised editions of a leading college Geography textbook, and published maps and served on the Editorial Board of the Britannica Atlas. At UT, he served for six years as Chair of the Geography Department, assisting in its development and growth, and for a term on the UT Faculty Athletic Board. Ed was passionate in teaching undergraduate and graduate students, family, and friends, about the earth, its natural systems, and its people and creatures. He and Elizabeth and children returned many summers to the Colorado Rockies, where well into their retirement they continued their hikes to high summits, many over 14,000 feet, often accompanied by children and grandchildren. Ed’s other interests included Civil War and WW II Pacific Naval War history, classical music, philosophy and religion, and poetry, words, and word games and humor. Ed was preceded in death by his parents and his brother, William D. Hammond. He is survived by his beloved wife Elizabeth, Knoxville; by his children Jay Weigel, Richmond, VA, Richard Hammond, Berkeley, CA, and Dr. Lawrence Hammond, Pullman, WA; by his grandchildren, Samuel John Weigel, Kingston, TN, Adam Scott Weigel, now serving a second tour of duty in Iraq with the 278th National Guard, Elizabeth Rose Weigel, Morristown, TN, Brendan Muir Hammond, Tacoma, WA, Siri Marias Hammond, of Northfield, MN, Matthew Mills Hammond, Sanya, Hainan, China, Perry Edwin Hammond, Madrid, Spain, James Reed Weesner of Minnetonka, MN, and Katherine Amodio of Sacramento, CA, and by five great-grandchildren. The family asks that, in lieu of flowers, donations in Ed's memory be made either to the FISH Hospitality Pantries, c/o Church of the Ascension, or to scholarships for students in Geography at UT (Knoxville).

Tributes

Edwin Hughes Hammond

January 8, 1919 - February 18, 1926