Funeral Service for Donald Wayne Hamilton
by Jeffrey W. Hamilton
We gather here today to remember the life of Donald Hamilton.
Donald Wayne Hamilton, 91, passed away in Shady Shores, Texas on Tuesday, April 15, 2025.
Donald was born on October 11, 1933, to Evard and Dora Hopkins Hamilton. He graduated from Reavis High School in Burbank, Illinois, in 1952. He served in the Navy as a radio repairman from 1953 to 1957. He worked for three months with RCA in 1958 before being employed as one of the first computer technicians for IBM when computers had vacuum tubes and occupied an entire floor. He retired from IBM in 1990.
He was born in Ottawa, Kansas, and lived in Chicago, Illinois, before joining the Navy. He married Shirley Ruth Estell in 1957 from Joliet, Illinois. While employed with IBM (“I’ve been moved”), he lived in Illinois, New York, Michigan, Montana, Canada, back to Illinois, and retired in North Carolina. After retirement, he moved to the mountains of North Carolina, followed by Missouri, and finally Texas.
He was a member of the church of Christ his entire life, serving as a prominent song leader wherever he attended and a preacher for a few years after his retirement. He served as a Cub Scout leader for Pack 198 in northern Illinois. He was a talented carpenter and electrician, and he built his own homes in Illinois, Missouri, and North Carolina.
He is preceded in death by his parents; his siblings Nadine Blocker, Daisy Watson, and Harold; his nephew Duane; and his grandson Benjamin. He is survived by his wife and companion of 68 years in marriage; his brother Leonard; his children Jeffrey (Gaye), Darrell (Sherry), Steve (Janine), Cynthia Salmons, and Glenn (Phoebe); his grandchildren Nathan, Andrew, Anthony, Zachery, Eric, Wesley, Jeremy, Samuel, Melanie Bunch, Jason, Alex, Sarah McBride, Cassondra Salmons, Kaytlyn Salmons, Kylee Salmons, Kristine Lockwood, Kimberly Abel and Kourtney; 21 great grandchildren with two on the way; 22 nephews and 20 nieces.
We all know that death is the inevitable consequence of living. You know the day of departure will come; yet, we are not quite ready when the time arrives. The writer of Psalms 116 assures us that “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His godly ones.”
It is precious because a life of purpose has been completed.
A Builder
Dad started life during the great depression. For a while, they lived in a remodeled garage owned by a sister-in-Christ who wrote cookbooks. Dad said the cold floor in the winter cured him of his sleepwalking. He learned carpentry and cabinet making as he worked alongside his father. He learned electrical work in the Navy. After the Navy, he worked for a short time repairing radios and TVs before landing a job with IBM to repair computers for the early warning defense system. When a traffic accident left him unable to carry a toolkit anymore, he learned to diagnose computer failures by reading dumps of computer memory. Eventually, he did some programming before his retirement.
He took a course in building TVs and later another course in watch and camera repairs, just to keep busy.
In Illinois, Mom and Dad bought an old, narrow 2-story house in Libertyville. He leveled the floors and added a sump drainage system. Dad and Grandpa dug a basement on the side of the house and built an addition that doubled the house's size. Much of the work was done by hand.
He often helped his sons with building and remodeling their homes. Even in retirement, he built a beautiful home on the Hiwassee River in the North Carolina mountains. He preached for a small congregation in Warne, North Carolina. He lost his sight in one eye and his short-term memory due to a stroke after his fourth heart attack. He had to give up preaching, and he and Mom moved to Missouri, where he built another home across the road from Cyndy and Eddie’s farm. Then he helped build a home for Cyndy and Eddie.
Like life, these works will not last. But there was joy in the doing. “I know that there is nothing better for them than to rejoice and to do good in one’s lifetime; moreover, that every man who eats and drinks sees good in all his labor – it is the gift of God” (Ecclesiastes 3:12-13)
A Servant
Dad loved the Lord and His church. There can’t be anything more precious. He taught Bible classes frequently. His favorite was the history of the Old Testament using “Outlines of Bible History” by Roy Lanier. I still have a copy.
He loved to sing. He had a beautiful baritone voice. He led singing wherever we went. He sang as he worked. Even a month before his death, he was still singing beautifully.
He and his father helped start a congregation north of Chicago. It relocated from Lake Forest to Libertyville, and it continues to meet in Round Lake Beach to this day.
He served his community with his military service. When we were old enough to join the Cub Scouts, he reluctantly became the Pack Leader for the local troop. He was popular and served for many years.
Mom and Dad loved strangers. I remember many sailors spending their weekends off at our home. In New York, Dad ran across this new dish called “hot pies” or “pizza.” He went home and went through Mom’s spice rack, sniffing each one. From that, they developed their own pizza recipe that is still made in the family. I remember pizza parties, singing in the New Year, and many other gatherings in our home.
Enjoying Life
Dad was always a bit of a jokester. You could tell he was up to something when he got a twinkle in his eye. When there were parties, Dad often had some game or puzzle to keep everyone entertained. For a while, we had a cabin in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. We took long vacations and traveled much of the United States in a camper. Dad loved card games. He taught us Crazy Eights (the precursor to Uno) and Contract Rummy (the precursor to Phase 10). He was tough to beat.
The traffic accident Dad suffered left him in a lot of pain. He wasn’t always in the best of moods, but he still had fun through life. He hunted deer and elk in the west when he was young, though he had to give that up after the accident. Oddly, while repairing his car, something popped in his back, and the pain stopped. The next thing I knew, Dad went off to hunt and shot three deer in the first 15 minutes, filling his tag.
Memories are good, especially focusing on the good times. But like all of life, even these will fade. “There is no remembrance of earlier things; and also of the later things which will occur, there will be for them no remembrance among those who come later still” (Ecclesiastes 1:11).
Grief is a natural reaction to death, but to understand why reaching the end of life is precious to God, we have to remember that this world is not our final destination. We are just passing through. “Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” (II Corinthians 4:16-5:1). Dad had a long, full life – much longer than he expected. Still, the physical body had become worn out and ceased to function. However, we don’t look at the physical, but the spiritual. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, in his “A Psalm of Life,” said,
“Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returneth,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Let us then be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and wait.”
Paul said, “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord” (I Corinthians 15:58). In life, we prepare ourselves for eternity.
“A good name is better than a good ointment, and the day of one's death is better than the day of one's birth. It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, because that is the end of every man, and the living takes it to heart. Sorrow is better than laughter, for when a face is sad a heart may be happy. The mind of the wise is in the house of mourning, ...” (Ecclesiastes 7:1-4).
May you have full lives, but more importantly, may those lives reflect the glory of God. May the end of our lives be precious in the sight of our Lord.
Graveside Remarks
Yesterday only exists in fading memories, worn-out photographs, and history books. It is a collection of imperfect records kept in an imperfect medium. However, unlike our recollections of yesterday, the Bible was written and is maintained by the perfect God. It will not fade away. Peter said, “For you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God. For, "All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls off, but the Word of the Lord endures forever" (I Peter 1:23-25).
There is no living space in yesterday. You cannot stay there. We cannot even accurately recall it. Solomon warns, “Do not say, "Why is it that the former days were better than these?" For it is not from wisdom that you ask about this” (Ecclesiastes 7:10). Yesterday, too often, is larger than life. What we remember and what truly happened are usually different. We only know what we experienced, and even then, we emphasize some points and ignore others because that is our nature. Put a set of people in a room to observe an event, and each one will give a different account, even when each is being totally truthful. Yesterday, things happened to me, but my memories are selective.
For some, the memories of yesterday are pleasant, but for others, it is a haunted place to be avoided. We may have memories filled with regrets, mistakes, and failures we would like to forget. The truth is: we don’t have control over what happens to us. We can only control our reaction to them. As James advised, “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” (James 2:2-4)
Regardless, yesterday doesn’t control our future. Some have yesterdays of faithful service to God, but not today. Others had pasts of evil, but not today. Perhaps there are plans for things we could do, if only ... but what are you doing with what you have? God’s standard is not yesterday, but today.
Yesterday tells us how we arrived at this point. Tomorrow is ahead of us, and we can choose our direction. Dad was focused on where he was going. Even with dementia, he was singing “Nearer, My God, to Thee” in his last days.
When we come to the end of our lives, our finish is not determined by our position, status, fame, or wealth. When we die, we leave all that we have behind. All that we take with us is who we are.
That being placed into the ground returns to the dust from which we were made. Yet, our souls live on. The grave is a departure, but it is not the end. "O Death, where is your victory? O Death, where is your sting?" The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (I Corinthians 15:55-57). May everyone here be victorious in Christ.
[Many of the phrases and ideas presented are not original to me. I borrowed bits and pieces from other authors to describe what was so difficult to say about my memories of my father.]
