Obit: Hamm, Fred L. (1889 - 1962)

Contact: stan@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

Surnames: Hamm, Smith, Taylor

----Source: OWEN ENTERPRISE (Owen, Clark County, Wis.) 11/22/1962

Hamm, Fred L. (5 AUG 1889 - 14? NOV 1962)

Rev. James Stone officiated at the final rites conducted for Fred Lester Hamm, 73, at 2:00 o’clock Saturday afternoon, Nov. 17, from the Hoeper and Kraut Funeral Home.  Burial was made at Riverside Cemetery.

Pallbearers were Arnold Anger, Andrew Konik, Charles Rahn, Tom Ceicora, Earl Nichols and Robert Weideman.

Mr. Ham’s death came as a shock to his family and friends when he was found dead of an apparent heart attack late Wednesday evening.  He had left his home earlier in the afternoon, telling members of his family that he intended to roam through the woods nearby his rural farm home in the Town of Maplehurst, scouting it for deer signs as the season approached.  When he failed to show up at the appointed hour where he was to have been picked up by relatives on a town road, concern was expressed for his whereabouts.  A canvas of the woods where he was to have emerged was made with his body being found near a fence line some 100 years from the appointed meeting place.

The deceased had been a lifelong resident of this community, being born Aug. 5, 1889, in the Town of Holway (Taylor Co., Wis.).  As a young man he farmed in the Holway community before moving to his present day large farm, which he laboriously developed the past 37 years in the Town of Maplehurst (Taylor Co.).

He was united in marriage Jan. 24, 1914 to the former Elsie Smith in a ceremony performed at Curtiss.  His passing is mourned by his widow, four sons, Harry Hamm, North Chicago, Ill., Harold Hamm, River Grove, Ill., Raymond (Tom) and Robert Hamm, rural Owen; one daughter, Mrs. Milford (Bernice) Smith, Owen; a sister, Mrs. Fred Taylor, a resident of Illinois and 10 grandchildren.