Hamer history in Mexico

Michael Johnson’s message to Nina Hamer:

“I remember Eleanor Turnbull’s name being mentioned by my grandmother, but sadly I can’t remember what was being said about her. She was clearly a strong character!”

Nina Hamer’s reply:

“Eleanor Turnbull was definitely the boss in the family. Geoff was such a darling that he just went along with everything. Not that I knew them well, because we lived outside Mexico until I was about 30 and when I came back I had to start over and work my derriere off so didn’t often have time to see them. You can see by their expressions in the photo of them together celebrating a birthday or something, in old age, that they were extremely fond of each other and enjoyed each other’s company hugely. That is a very enviable relationship. I also know that my father adored her and the feeling was mutual. She called him Sonny. Three of her boys and her one girl left Mexico very young to live and work abroad and the one that stayed died of leukemia, also very young, so I’m glad she and Geoff got along so well.”

This is an account of the family of Thurston Hamer (the first), sent to me by his grandson, Thurston Hamer III, with some notes by Michael Johnson

More about the Hamers… Thurston (the first) and Rosemary Rennow had six children, Thurston (the second), Dorothy, Wilfred, William Robert (Bobs), Madys and James^[1] Ashworth (Jimmy), in more or less that order. Thurston II was born in Mexico City (dates to follow) and all except Wilfred were to die there, some of them after spending a great part of their lives elsewhere.

Thurston (II) was sent to England at an early age for schooling and later went to Canada for college, graduating as a Mechanical Engineer (?) from McGill University in Montreal. I’m not sure why he chose Canada rather than staying in England, but I suppose it was closer to Mexico and safer to get to during World War 1. Also, during the Mexican revolution various family members spend some time in Canada… this needs to be researched. In any event, Thurston went to work for the Canadian National railways after graduation and later moved to the US to work for the Air Reduction Sales Corp., in a regional sales capacity. Air Reduction operated in the field of welding equipment and industrial gasses. He was initially based in New York City, where he met and married Catherine French, my mother. I recall the story that the French’s lived in Pennsylvania, where my grandfather was a Presbyterian minister, and all of the children missed no opportunity to get away and spend as much time as possible in more exciting places such as New York. I believe my mother was visiting a cousin (Alice, I believe) when she met my father.

Shortly after marriage they moved to Chicago, where they lived on a cabin cruiser that was docked at a Chicago yacht club. There is an amusing story about how the boat almost sunk during a storm while my father was travelling and my mother paid no attention to the sound of another boat poking a hole in the hull of her boat!

I have no idea how long they stayed in Chicago, but eventually they moved back to New York (I suppose all this time with Air Reduction) and bought a home at 18 Vinton St. in Long Beach, Long Island, which was on the ocean and about an hour’s commute by the Long Island Railroad into Pennsylvania Station in NYC. Long Beach was not far from Floral Park, Long Island, where my father’s brother Wifred had settled with his family, but more about them later.

During the depression, my father lost his job and went into business for himself selling and servicing electric arc welding equipment in the Long Island area. I assume that he was doing this when I was born on October 1, 1933. I remember that my father later accepted a position with the Rober W. Hunt Co., and engineering consulting firm that did inspection work on large construction projects. We continued to live in Long Beach, but at one point during World War II my father was assigned to a construction project for the US Navy and we spent the winter of 1942 (?) in Hartford, Ct. With the war winding down, we moved back to Long Beach and the idea of a trip to Mexico began to take shape.

In the Spring of 1946, my father bought a 1938 Chevrolet sedan and had it fixed up for what must have been a very major trip at the time, through the US down to Mexico. My father and I in the front seat, and my mother, my two-year-old cousin Jon and our Dalmatian dog in the back, on the top of so many pieces of luggage and other items that we rode at window level. I remember that we went through Philadelphia, then down through Tennessee and Mississippi and on to San Antonio, Texas. From there we crossed into Mexico at Laredo and proceeded on to Mexico City, stopping to spend on night in Monterrey. I think we arrived in Mexico City in early April, and stayed with my father’s sister Madys and her husband Kenneth Bannister and their family in the suburb of San Angel.

I don’t remember how long we stayed at the Bannisters, but my mother and father decided that we should stay in Mexico rather than return to New York and they rented a small house on Calle Reforma, just up the street from the Bannister property at Reforma 13. My father drove the car back to Long Beach and sold the house on Vinton St. (later said that the timing was awful… just before the post-war boom) while looking for a job that would enable us to continue living in Mexico. He eventually contacted an old college friend who had started Wall Colmonoy Corporation, and agreed to represent the firm in Mexico. Colmonoy manufactured metal alloys and equipment used to spray these in powdered form on surfaces subject to heavy wear. My father continued to represent this firm until his death in 1965. My mother, who had fallen in love with Mexico from the start, became very active in the field of teaching English as a second language, and remained in Mexico until her death in 1970 (1969?).

Dorothy Hamer, my father’s oldest sister, studied in Canada (at Havergal, I think) and then returned to Mexico where she lived for the rest of her life. She married Harold Golding, a young Englishman who became a successful insurance broker in Mexico City, and had two children, Betty and John. Betty married Charles Johnson and had two children, Michael and Richard, and lived most of her life in Mexico. In later years the Johnsons retired in Spain and after Charles’ death Betty moved to London where she lived until her death in 2006^[2]. John never married. He made his life in London and became prominent in the art world as an expert on the subject of Cubism. He was also a curator at London’s Tate Gallery and until a recent series of health problems hindered his mobility travelled frequently, giving talks related to his field of expertise.

Wilfred, the third child, studied in England and joined the army during World War I, where he served in France and survived gas attacks by the German troops. After the war he moved to the US, where he married Leila and had two children, Jimmy (James Thurston) and Rosemary. They bought a house in Floral Park, Long Island, where they were gracious hosts to a steady stream of visitors from the family in Mexico. Tragedy and hard time struck them, however, although I am not too clear as to the dates. I remember my father telling me that in the same month, Rosemary was born, Wilfred lost his job and his bank failed, all but wiping out his savings. When Rosemary was a very young girl (5 or 6) she drowned while the family was on vacation in Canada.

Madys also studied in Canada and also returned to Mexico, where she married and had three children, Kenny, Mary and Myriam. Her husband, Kenneth Bannister, was a young engineer with the British Blue Circle cement company, and the Bannisters lived in a company house next to the cement plant at Tolteca in the state of Hidalgo, in central Mexico, for a number of years before Kenneth was promoted and transferred to the main plant in Mexico City. He had a very successful career with Cementos Tolteca and became Managing Director in the early 1940s.

William Robert (Bobs to his family and Bill to his many friends and business associates) worked for Chrysler and General Motors for most of his business career, and lived in Spain and Argentina before returning to Mexico as Service Manager for GM Mexico around 1950. After retiring from GM he started a business on his own, Equipos Hobbs S.A., making trailers and truck bodies. After closing Equipos Hobbs, he retired to Cuernavaca with his second wife, Marilyn. He had no children with Marilyn or Madge, his first wife. After Bobs died in 1960 (?^[3]) Marilyn returned to live in the U.S.

[James] Ashworth (Jimmy) was the baby of the family and never married or moved away from Mexico. He was greatly loved by all of his family and particularly by his nieces and nephews. After his mother died in 1933, “Uncle Jimmy” and his father were invited to live with the Bannister family.

The next generation of this branch of the Hamer family is much smaller than the preceding generations. Madys and Kenneth Bannister had three children, Dorothy and Harold had two, Wilfred and Leila had two and my father and mother had one.

Thurston Hamer

Sent to Michael Johnson in March 2017 and re-typed by him

1. In fact, his name was Richard Ashworth. MJ ↑
2. April 2005. MJ ↑
3. 1979, I think. MJ ↑

Richard Ashworth ‘Jimmy’ Hamer 1905-1982

Jimmy was the youngest child of Thurston and Rose Mary ‘Rosita’ Hamer. The story I was told was that when Jimmy was born there were complications in his feeding and the baby and mother both came close to death. The father rushed to have the baby baptised, and he was given the name Richard. Both baby and mother survived, and Rosita was very upset because she said she had wanted the child to be called James or Jimmy. Thereafter he was called Jimmy, and people were often surprised when on legal documents that name never appeared.

Jimmy was the only child living at home with his parents in January/February 1913 when the unfolding of the Mexican Revolution began to have a major impact on the safety and well-being of the residents of Mexico City. At the beginning of the ‘Decena Tragica‘ Thurston and Rosita locked up their house on Calle Genova, and took Jimmy with them to a hotel in the city centre while they made plans to leave the city. Jimmy would have been 8 years old at the time, and it must have been frightening when the day came to leave the comparative safety of the hotel and risk a passage to the train station in a coach. Jimmy and his mother were packed around with suitcases in case they came under fire. They got to the station safely and took one of the last trains out of the city to the safety of Veracruz, where they lived for some time.

I believe that Jimmy and his mother were very close. She died when he was 28, and he lived after that with his father. After the death of his father in 1945, Jimmy was offered a room in the

house of his brother-in-law, Kenneth Bannister, and he lived at Reforma 13 for the remainder of his life. I remember his room there which was always extremely neat and tidy and contained evidence of some of his hobbies. He was an enthusiastic photographer, and had an 8mm movie camera and projector, and he loved putting on film shows for us. He also played the piano and he bought himself a small organ which he could play with headphones, and from which he derived much pleasure.

Jimmy never married and think he never held down a full-time job. He worked as a part-time book-keeper for many years for various organisations, including the British Benevolent Society and eventually for Longman in Mexico.

He was an exceedingly gentle, kind and generous man. He liked children, and became a friend of his nephews and nieces and eventually great-nephews too. When my brother and I were young we would see a lot of ‘Uncle Jimmy’ (he was actually a great-uncle of course).

He would read to us and as we grew older he shared with us his love of trains. He had some electric train sets and he participated enthusiastically in contributing to and helping to set up quite an impressive set of trains (HO gauge) in what had been John Golding’s studio at Calle Comunal 52. He loved organising treats and expeditions, which often involved trains. I remember going to the zoo in Mexico City with him and riding on the miniature train there, and also a couple of trips by train to Cuernavaca. When we were small Jimmy would often babysit for us, and we always greatly looked forward to those occasions. He would make us French toast for supper and would read to us and play games with us. He also became a firm friend of Christopher Plummer, and great-nephew who was a little younger than Richard and me.

I owe a lot to Uncle Jimmy. I have a weakness for puns, thanks to him, and he taught me to love and enjoy the writings of Stephen Leacock. He was very much a favourite uncle, a visitor from the adult world who was able to fully understand and participate in the joys and explorations of the growing child.

I had an email from Thurston Hamer III who wrote as follows:

“My father, the second Thurston, was Job’s  grandson, and was born in Mexico City and was the first of the family to be born here. At an early age he was sent to England to study at St. Christopher’s school in Eastbourne. I have a class photograph that was taken in 1906 but don’t know if it was a graduation picture. My guess is that it was. He later attended McGill University in Montreal, and graduated in 1913 with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. After graduation, he worked for the Canadian National Railways, which must have been what he was doing in Quebec in August of 1914.”

Email from Thurston Hamer 01/02/17

Welcome to this site. I’m hoping to develop it as a site containing family history of the Hamers in Mexico. I’m hoping that posts will be made by other family members.

Who am I in relation to Job Hamer, the Hamer ancestor who took the family to Mexico? My name is Michael Johnson, and I am Job Hamer’s great-great grandson. My grandmother was born Dorothy Hamer, and her father was Thurston Hamer I, Job’s eldest son.