f Rosa Nell Hammer knew you and saw you around town, a handwritten card likely arrived at your home soon after.
A realtor in Miami Lakes through more than half a century, Hammer witnessed and help chronicle the town’s many changes. She taught colleagues and friends about the importance of personal relationships, reliable correspondence and sincerity.
An avid amateur horticulturalist, she became recognized as an orchid expert.
She always insisted she didn’t want a lot of “hoopla” around her birthday, but she loved a party with friends, a saxophone player and perhaps a splash of whiskey.
Rosa Nell Hammer died September 14 at106. At the time of her death, she was Miami Lakes’ oldest resident.
A child during the Great Depression, she joined the women entering U.S. factories during World War II, wielding a rivet gun in an Ohio factory to help build airplanes for the Navy.
By the time she arrived in South Florida in 1955 with her husband and children, she had also lived in Japan. After first settling in Hialeah, she later moved to Miami Lakes when her children were grown.
There is an orchid named for her, and a Miami Lakes street.
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The daughter of I.D. Gordy and Eleanor Thompson Gordy, Rosa Nell Hammer grew up in Electric Mills, Mississippi, a small town near the Alabama border, in a farmhouse that got electricity when she was in high school. She graduated in 1937.
Her son, Brent, said his grandparents didn’t have the money to send Hammer to college and instead she went on to work as a waitress and in a gift shop in Meridian, Mississippi, where she met her husband, Harvey Hammer.
“He met her in the gift shop, buying cigars from her,” Brent said.
Following their marriage in 1943, Harvey was deployed and Rosa Nell went to Akron, Ohio, where she stayed with an uncle. For a year, she worked in the Goodyear factory as a riveter helping to build Navy Corsair airplanes.
Following World War II, Harvey also served in Korea, which moved the family to Japan, where he was stationed. They spent three years there. Brent said his mother loved Japanese culture. In Japan, she also began to learn about flowers, a passion she would carry through her life.
The family returned to the United States in 1955, where they settled in Hialeah, Hammer worked as a waitress briefly at Miami International Airport.
“She worked hard, she wanted the best for kids,” Brent said.
Brent recalls that his mother was impacted by the fact her own father could not afford to send her to college and made sure that her own kids would be able to attend. He said he never owed a dime after graduating from the University of Florida, where he studied civil engineering.
Eventually Hammer would go onto work for the Keyes Company, where she sold homes in Opa-Locka.
“I don’t know how long she was there, but one of Grahams came to her and said ‘hey, would you like to work for the Graham Companies?’,” Brent said.
Hammer sold homes in the Gramercy Park development on the west side of Miami Lakes in the 1970s and 1980s.
Eventually Hammer returned to work for Keyes, where she sold homes well into her 90s.
It was during her return to Keyes that she was teamed with rookie realtor Allan Pelaez.
He began working with Hammer when he first got his realtor license and was volunteering to do open houses and rentals - whatever more established agents didn’t want to do.
“I remember doing an open house with her in Gramercy Park … and then we finished the open house and I was eager to go home,” Pelaez said. “And she’s like ‘no no, let’s just drive around.’”
During that drive, she talked about the homes she had sold, who she had sold them to.
“I was like ‘this lady is a walking encyclopedia, I better hang onto her,’” Pelaez said.
That eventually blossomed into a friendship; Pelaez would drive Hammer, who didn’t drive at night, and asked her to tag along with her to showings.
“She was like my grandmother … it was a special connection that we had,” Pelaez said.
He still remembers her lessons on subjects like writing personalized thank-you notes and hand-delivering things.
“She used to keep up with people like crazy … even if they moved away,” Pelaez said.
Later, when he set up his own real estate business, he named it Hammer Realty in honor of the woman who taught him everything he knows – including gifting orchids to his clients.
Realtor and Miami Lakes town councilor Juan Carlos Fernandez also saw that personal touch and genuine care for people up close. She was someone who disproved stereotypes about realtors only being successful if they’re ruthless or cutthroat. Hammer was no pushover, he said, but her love of the work came from a genuine care for people.
“Sometimes, somebody that’s been in the industry that long, you think she must have this personality that’s harsh,” he said. “She was the kindest, sweetest lady.
“She taught me and some of my colleagues the importance of writing a handwritten letter. If she saw you at the store, she would get back to the office and write you a note.”
Xiomara Castillo saw Hammer’s love for people and orchids up close. A Keyes real estate advisor and the current Miami Lakes Garden Club president, Castillo met Hammer when she started at Keyes in 2003. The pair became neighbors in the Lake Sandra neighborhood, where plenty of yellow orchids dot the street thanks to Hammer’s generosity.
“She was named a lifetime member of the garden club because she has been a very valuable member all these years,” Castillo said.
Castillo called Hammer not only knowledgeable about her orchids, but gardening in general. Her passion for orchids led to a yellow striped orchid named in her honor, the Brassica Laelia Cattleya Nell Hammer by R.F. Orchids of Homestead.
Castillo said that Hammer shared her knowledge of caring for the delicate plants, including in a special presentation for her garden club friends. She was 104 at the time.
“She came with all different kinds of orchids and gave a lecture on them and how to grow them,” Castillo said.
Pelaez said that working kept her alive; she always told him if she had moved back to Alabama to sit in a rocking chair, she would have died.
“She had found a purpose,” Pelaez said.
In addition to their time together at Keyes, Juan Carlos Fernandez worked with Hammer on one particular town project that was close to her heart. He first learned of her love of local history when they sat next to each other and would chat about it.
“She loved it, and I loved listening to it,” he said. “Knowing her and having conversations about her regarding the beginnings of the town, for me that’s her strongest legacy and the part I’m going to miss the most.”
When he chaired the town’s Neighborhood Improvement Committee, he oversaw a town historical tour. For that, there was only one person to turn to. They sat for hours going over important places and events. Hammer was going to give the tour, but she got sick just before, Fernandez said. So he stepped in – using her notes and knowledge.
“There was so much richness,” he said, “when she was talking and sharing these stories.”
A celebration will be held from noon to 3 p.m. on Saturday, October 3 at Veterans Park. Originally intended as Rosa Nell Hammer’s 107th birthday party, it will be a celebration of her life. All are invited.