Friends, family share fond memories of Bob Hamilton
By Gloria I. Wang
Right up until the end, former Los Gatos Vice Mayor Robert "Bob" Hamilton kept his upbeat and positive demeanor.
On the morning of March 19, his wife, Carol, asked Hamilton, 65, how he was; he said he was fine, despite the fact that he was in pain from liver cancer. He would die that evening.
"He never, ever complained," Carol said of her husband. "I would get mad. I would say, 'You can't be fine.' "
"He was always focused on the positive," said Don Wolf, a pilot, like Hamilton, and fellow Los Gatos Kiwanis Club member. "He knew a lot of people and he touched them positively. We all benefited from his friendship."
Hamilton's involvement with various aviation organizations, leadership in local nonprofit groups and distinguished aviation career in the U.S. Army earned him countless friends--as evidenced by the turnout for his March 23 funeral at Darling & Fischer Chapel of the Hills.
In his 25-year residency in Los Gatos, Hamilton served one term on the Los Gatos Town Council, was on the boards of Los Gatos YMCA and the Los Gatos Museum, served as president of the Kiwanis and volunteered for Los Gatos Boys Baseball.
Deputy Town Clerk MarLyn Rasmussen said Hamilton had his own views and often disagreed strongly with other members of the town council, partly because he was a strong Republican surrounded by Democrats, but "he never, ever held a grudge. He appreciated everybody's point of view, even when he was right," Rasmussen said.
Hamilton "was a friend, always a friend," Wolf said. "He questioned everything, which is what made him such a wonderful Republican."
"He was just passionate in what he believed in," Rasmussen said. "Passionate about his politics, passionate about Los Gatos, passionate about right and wrong."
Despite the political conflicts that Hamilton endured while in town government, he always maintained his sense of humor.
"He was just a jolly, happy man," said friend Joanne Crum.
"He had a fantastic sense of humor and was a terrible tease," Carol Hamilton said. "I never knew when he was serious."
Wolf, Hamilton and six or seven other locals met for coffee every Tuesday morning at Le Boulanger in downtown Los Gatos. They called themselves "The Hangar Pilots" because of their mutual love of flying.
Hamilton was so committed to the group that he showed up at 7:30 a.m. on March 12, one week before his death.
"There are no rules, there are no fees, you just show up and talk about airplanes," Wolf said.
Hamilton, however, never talked about his 21 years in the Army, when he flew helicopters and earned the Legion of Merit, two Bronze Stars, 30 Air Medals and the Distinguished Flying Cross. He also didn't mention that he had been inducted into the Army Aviation Hall of Fame in 1986, nor that he had been president of the U.S. Army Warrant Officers Association.
"He didn't tell people where he'd been," son Dave Hamilton said. "He didn't look back. When he finished something, he was done with it."
Hamilton, born in 1936, was raised in Merced, where his parents operated the local theater and then opened a restaurant. He and Carol started dating their senior year of high school. "He probably, even then, was so fair, and so honest," Carol said. "Of all the boys that I went out with, my father felt very comfortable with Bob."
Even back then, Hamilton maintained his car the way he would later maintain his airplane--meticulously. For every single car trip that they took together in almost 40 years, Carol Hamilton said, her husband would walk around the vehicle, inspecting the tires, checking the oil level and making sure the car was clean.
"He would take the motor out all the time and put it back in," Carol said. "If you opened up the hood, you could eat off the top of the engine"--that's how tidy Hamilton kept his possessions.
According to Carol, her husband joined the Army in 1954 with the intention of sticking with it for three or four years and then going to college. Instead, he found that he enjoyed flight school and eventually served in Germany and Vietnam.
Bob Hamilton
Carol and Bob married in 1956; soon after, they had daughters Susan and Barbara. The family lived all over the world, including three years in Germany--where Dave was born in 1964--Alabama and Washington, D.C.
Finally, Hamilton decided to retire from the Army so he could spend more time with his children. In 1997, the Hamiltons moved to Los Gatos, where Bob's parents had opened The Shade Shop on E. Main Street two decades earlier, and set to work selling window coverings.
Hamilton quickly became embroiled in local politics, attending and speaking at every town council and planning commission meeting.
"It finally got to the point where he felt ... if you're going to watch all this and comment on it, then you have to be able to help," Carol said. "You can't just criticize."
As a result, Hamilton handed over management of The Shade Shop to his wife. "He said to me, 'Carol, you don't realize it, but basically you've been running this store for the past five years,' " she said. She ran the store until 1999; the business is now McMurtry & Bell Insurance.
In 1982 and 1984, he made two failed bids for town council, with the 1984 election a close loss. "It was very interesting to see this last [presidential] election," Carol said, laughing. "It was like what we went through."
At around the same time, Hamilton began his second career in aviation, as a pilot for private companies. Hamilton worked for Saratoga Savings and Loan before moving on to Aris Helicopter and then Terra Commercial, a job he held until the summer of 2000.
Dave Hamilton, a 1983 graduate of Los Gatos High School, is himself a pilot for American Eagle. "He was just a pioneer at the time in aviation, in the military," Dave said.
Dave said he was lucky to be able to fly with his father and learn not only life lessons, but aviation lessons from the senior Hamilton. "On a daily basis, I'm reminded of him because of what he taught me," Dave said. "He was just a special person. You realize that when you look back at everything he managed to accomplish."
"He was really my hero," daughter Barbara Fralick said. "He told me I could do anything I wanted to, and I believed him."
Nine years ago, Barbara's son and husband were in a boating accident. Her husband suffered severe brain injuries as a result, and underwent a long hospital stay and a series of procedures afterward. Her father moved up to her house in Auburn for several months to help her cook, clean and take care of her two sons. "He was excellent. He just did it all," she said.
Her husband "truly was a family man," Carol said. "He was probably better with the kids than I was."
Hamilton had a knack for soothing fussy babies and always attracted kids, including Barbara's two sons and his daughter Susan Dias's four daughters.
Carol also said Bob made a good husband. "He led and I followed," Carol said--which worked fine in their 45-year marriage.
In the days preceding Bob's death, the family dropped everything to spend time with him. Dave flew in from Chicago, and Barbara and her family left their home in Auburn, as did Hamilton's brother Dick and his wife. Susan, who lives in Los Gatos, and her four daughters were constantly at her parents' Bella Vista Avenue home.
"We were all standing, holding him, when he went," Carol said. "You could tell he really didn't want to go," but Carol Hamilton said it was a relief for the family because he had been in pain for the past year.
An April 16 graveside ceremony is planned at Arlington National Cemetery, with 20 family members and a host of friends from the military attending.
Afterward, Carol said, the family will spend some time visiting friends on the East Coast.
"I think this is what he really wanted," said Carol, "for all of us to go out and have a good time."
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Los Gatos, California Since 1881
