If you told somebody about even one or two aspects of Rosa Nell Hammer’s life, it would sound like something with potential to be a hit film or Netflix series.
She was born on the Mississippi-Alabama border just after the end of World War 1. Her hometown was called Electric Mills, but the farmhouse she grew up in didn’t get electricity until she was in high school. During World War II, she joined other women of what would later come to be called the Greatest Generation as a “Rosie the Riveter” - and in her case, the famous nickname was literal as she took up a rivet gun and helped build airplanes for the war effort.
She also worked in a gift shop, where she sold a cigar to a man named Harvey. He would become her husband.
Imagine pitching that to Tom Hanks. By the cigar, he’d be texting Ron Howard about directing and calling in favors to get a top actress in the lead role. And we’re not even a quarter of the way through Rosa Nell Hammer’s extraordinary life story.
We celebrate life in this issue of The Miami Laker. In particular, we celebrate the life of Rosa Nell Hammer, who was Miami Lakes’ oldest resident when she died last month at the age of 106.
It’s hard to do justice in the pages of a newspaper to a life so grand. I think we’ve done our best.
Elsewhere in this issue are photos from a recent evening hosted by South Florida Donor Network. The organization, which recently opened its new Miami Lakes headquarters, invited loved ones of those whose gifts help others to live.
Reflecting on a life well lived can look like a lot of different things. Collecting and telling stories together is one of the most fundamental acts of remembering. We could fill these pages several times over with the stories everybody has about Rosa Nell Hammer. And every person who attended the South Florida Organ Donor Network carried with them stories about the person who was their reason for showing up that night.
On October 3, there will be a party for Rosa Nell Hammer. It was originally planned as her 107th birthday party, an event she would attend. Instead it will be a celebration of her life.
As the pictures from the South Florida Donor Network event show, celebrations for lives remembered can offer powerful moments. They’re not like the parties we have with the people who are still with us, but they are part of what connects us to them.
Some stories are cinematic. Climbing into a partially built airplane with a rivet gun? Chatting to a fella as you sell him a cigar? I’d watch that movie.
But the stories of a life are also made of the quieter, moments.
They’re all worth sharing, and they’re all important to share.