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The Patriot Ledger (Quincy, MA)
January 15, 2013 Tuesday
ROP Edition
A GOOD AGE;
Rockland resident Dorothy Hammer, 89, doesn't just relate stories
verbally, she also does it with her paintings;
STORIES TO TELL
by Sue Scheible, The Patriot Ledger
ROCKLAND
Dorothy Hammer always has a story. That's the first thing people say
about her. She's quick to agree. "I like to joke and talk to people,"
she says. "I'm not a real smart aleck, but I just like people. And I
love to do all sorts of things."
Some of the stories are about her life. Growing up in Boston and
Whitman with parents who escaped the Armenian genocide. The wartime
years, working at the Hingham Ammunition Depot, where she met her late
husband, Clifford. Getting married at age 24 and raising three
children. Teaching kindergarten at the Pussycat Private School.
Working with children at Brockton Hospital. Teaching driving for 25
years, until she was 72.
At 89, she has hardly slowed down. Each morning, she dresses up,
matching her clothes for colors, putting on earrings and jewelry and
lipstick, and she plans her day.
"I have to get a job," she says. "I've always had a job."
What she really would like to do is teach other elderly people how to
drive, "so they wouldn't be afraid to go out to the grocery store."
She chuckles at the improbability.
Some of her liveliest tales are about her art.
Hammer began taking art lessons when she was 7. She was a bit of a
tomboy, playing marbles with the boys, and her cobbler father ("a real
happy guy") thought she was getting into too much mischief. He sent
her for drawing lessons. The diversion worked and art became a
lifetime hobby. Dozens of her paintings are on permanent display at
the Piano Mill in Rockland Center.
Her calling card reads "Paintings by Dorothy Hammer: seascape,
landscape, still life and portraits, oil, watercolor, pastel & mixed
media."
"I like to make stories with my pictures, you know," she says. "I see
something and I have to feel, 'How did it happen? What is behind it?'
I attach myself to it."
We are standing in the main gallery at the Piano Mill. Kim Engel, a
teacher and salesperson, calls Hammer "an extraordinary woman. Miss
Dorothy has such a breadth of mediums and subjects."
Later, we stop by her home, where paintings fill her walls and dolls
line her chairs and sofas.
"I never had a doll as a child," she explains.
On a hook by the entrance is a hat: "Senior Moment Survival Hat.
Caution. Frequent senior moments."
Hammer, who'll turn 90 on July 26, isn't about to rest on her laurels.
"When my husband was alive, I was always doing things for him, for
others," she says. "He wouldn't travel. I want to do things, go
places. I've come to a point where I want to be me, myself and I."
January 15, 2013 Tuesday
ROP Edition
A GOOD AGE;
Rockland resident Dorothy Hammer, 89, doesn't just relate stories
verbally, she also does it with her paintings;
STORIES TO TELL
by Sue Scheible, The Patriot Ledger
ROCKLAND
Dorothy Hammer always has a story. That's the first thing people say
about her. She's quick to agree. "I like to joke and talk to people,"
she says. "I'm not a real smart aleck, but I just like people. And I
love to do all sorts of things."
Some of the stories are about her life. Growing up in Boston and
Whitman with parents who escaped the Armenian genocide. The wartime
years, working at the Hingham Ammunition Depot, where she met her late
husband, Clifford. Getting married at age 24 and raising three
children. Teaching kindergarten at the Pussycat Private School.
Working with children at Brockton Hospital. Teaching driving for 25
years, until she was 72.
At 89, she has hardly slowed down. Each morning, she dresses up,
matching her clothes for colors, putting on earrings and jewelry and
lipstick, and she plans her day.
"I have to get a job," she says. "I've always had a job."
What she really would like to do is teach other elderly people how to
drive, "so they wouldn't be afraid to go out to the grocery store."
She chuckles at the improbability.
Some of her liveliest tales are about her art.
Hammer began taking art lessons when she was 7. She was a bit of a
tomboy, playing marbles with the boys, and her cobbler father ("a real
happy guy") thought she was getting into too much mischief. He sent
her for drawing lessons. The diversion worked and art became a
lifetime hobby. Dozens of her paintings are on permanent display at
the Piano Mill in Rockland Center.
Her calling card reads "Paintings by Dorothy Hammer: seascape,
landscape, still life and portraits, oil, watercolor, pastel & mixed
media."
"I like to make stories with my pictures, you know," she says. "I see
something and I have to feel, 'How did it happen? What is behind it?'
I attach myself to it."
We are standing in the main gallery at the Piano Mill. Kim Engel, a
teacher and salesperson, calls Hammer "an extraordinary woman. Miss
Dorothy has such a breadth of mediums and subjects."
Later, we stop by her home, where paintings fill her walls and dolls
line her chairs and sofas.
"I never had a doll as a child," she explains.
On a hook by the entrance is a hat: "Senior Moment Survival Hat.
Caution. Frequent senior moments."
Hammer, who'll turn 90 on July 26, isn't about to rest on her laurels.
"When my husband was alive, I was always doing things for him, for
others," she says. "He wouldn't travel. I want to do things, go
places. I've come to a point where I want to be me, myself and I."