Evelyn Elizabeth Hammer

Evelyn Elizabeth Hammer, of Lake Limestone, passed away unexpectedly on Wednesday night, April 10, 2013, at her home, after shopping during the day and attending Wednesday night services at church. She was 80. Visitation will be Friday, April 12, 2013, from 6:00 to 8:00 P.M. at the Groesbeck Funeral Home. Funeral services will be held at 10:00 A.M. on Saturday, April 13, at the Lake Limestone Baptist Church, with Reverend Johnny Layton officiating. The Senior Men’s Sunday School Class will serve as honorary pallbearers. Mrs. Hammer will be interred on Tuesday, April 16, 2013 at 1:30 PM in the Houston National Cemetery, 10410 Veterans Memorial Drive, Houston, TX 77038. Evelyn, a lifelong Texan, was born on April 7, 1933 to Benjamin Wiley Jenkins and Elizabeth Dora Jenkins in Newby. She grew up in Aldine where she attended school until the family moved prior to her senior year. She graduated from Ball High School in Galveston. Evelyn was united in marriage with Gerald Nick Hammer, Sr. on April 20, 1951, in Seabrook. They lived in Seabrook where she was mother to two children. After the kids were in school, she began her career in insurance, working for National Life and Accident in Pasadena, and retiring after about thirty years from AIG. The last ten years she had been promoted to auditor, and flew to various states on many trips to audit the records. She loved to travel and took the kids to California many summers, where she loved to attend shows such as Carol Burnett, The Price is Right, Johnny Carson, Hollywood Squares, and more. She was never bashful in meeting the stars. Evelyn was a huge fan of the Oak Ridge Boys and qualified as a “groupie”; she and Gerald drove across the country from Nevada to Florida to attend their concerts, and became personally acquainted with them. She was also a big fan of David Phelps and the Gaithers, since she knew his parents while living at Lake Limestone. Evelyn and Nick had bought a lot near the lake where they visited for years on weekends, and eventually they moved there full time. They were charter members of the Lake Limestone Baptist Church, which he helped build. She was locally known to many as the “shrimp lady”, which was a job she inherited from her son, who used to buy and sell freshly caught shrimp from Dickinson. After he moved to Florida it became her pleasure to pick up shrimp at Hillman’s Seafood in Dickinson and deliver it back to friends and acquaintances around home. Evelyn loved life and loved people and had a good time. She enjoyed showing people her “hammer” necklace so new acquaintances would remember her name. She was compared to “Lucy” in her zany adventures. She had celebrated her eightieth birthday on Sunday, and again with her daughter on Monday, and claimed she did not feel eighty. She and Nick would have celebrated sixty-two years of marriage on the 20th. of April. Evelyn was preceded in death by her parents and her brothers, Ferman Jenkins and Carl Dean Jenkins and sister, Fonsene Witherspoon. She is survived by her husband, Gerald Hammer of Lake Limestone; her daughter and son-in-law, Cheryl and Mark McReynolds of Houston; son, Gerald N. Hammer, Jr. of Florida; grandchildren: Andrea Kilpper of Austin, Cory Kelly of Thornton, Bevin Duvall-Hammer and Caitlin Duvall-Hammer; and six great grandchildren; a brother, Calvin Jenkins and wife Dorothy “Dot” of Plantersville; sisters-in-law, Cherry Sue Hammer of League City and Joyce Nelson of Dickinson; and brothers-in-law, David Hammer and his wife Jan of Bryan and Earl Hammer of Alaska; and many nieces and nephews. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations may be made to Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, Attn: Kimberly Harris, 1919 South Braeswood, Suite 5214, Houston, TX 77030.