Lee’s ambition above was to build a conservatory. According to the article below in his former company’s newsletter, Warner Gear, he did acquire a greenhouse after retirement at his home in Muncie, Indiana. (boldness mine)
Another flower gardener, Lee Hammer, who was foreman over the millwrights and welders in 1954 at Plant 3. Lee can show you more than 150 varieties of flowers in his gardens at 1224 E. 22nd Street where he keeps busy taking care of his greenhouse and three acres of ground. Lee was a 26-year man with the company.
Lee Hammer was my great uncle, my paternal grandmother’s brother. You might know my grandmother as Mema as I have written about her many times in SMGB. They were part of nine siblings.
This was made in 1917 in Kentucky as family and friends gathered the day their brother was leaving for World War 1. Uncle Lee is circled in the back row and Mema is on the right with a stylish bobby haircut. She is completely dressed in white and I like to think this was for the women’s suffrage movement. I enjoy the woman behind her who’s turned sideways and looking out into the unknown or maybe she is just showing her good side. The man on the right squatted down in the front holding a girl on his knee was also their brother. At one time he was the county sheriff and I have his comb box.
I remember my grandmother saying that Lee’s three acre property in Muncie was so popular that schools would bus students over to view his gardens and he was on every garden tour in the area. Again he grew over 150 types of flowers in his gardens!
Here neighbors are watching Lee making sorghum syrup. He is boiling the juice that had been extracted from sorghum canes. I have this large framed photograph hanging in my upstairs and believe it was taken by a newspaper.
Sorghum syrup is made from the green juice of the sorghum plant, which is extracted from the crushed stalks and then heated to steam off the excess water leaving the syrup behind. Conversely, molasses is the by-product of processing sugar cane into sugar.
Here’s a short two minute video on making sorghum syrup.
And if you are into it, here’s a fun seven minute video with more details, beautiful music and great characters. There are many YouTube videos on this subject.
Occasionally I run across some local made sorghum in my hometown in Kentucky but most is now made by the Plain People. I usually have a jar in my house. I remember old timers would mix the sorghum together with slices of butter to put on warm homemade biscuits.
My father always liked what was called Blackstrap molasses.
Blackstrap molasses is a byproduct of sugar cane's refining process. Sugar cane is mashed to create juice. It's then boiled once to create cane syrup. A second boiling creates molasses. After this syrup has been boiled a third time, a dark viscous liquid emerges known to Americans as blackstrap molasses.
Lee’s wife had passed away twenty years before. In blowing up this photo, it’s great to see on the table where his arm is resting, plant catalogues and some seed packages that look like zinnas. That TV appears to be an early black and white which he probably didn’t use often since being such an avid reader. Of course the forced blooming amaryllis is a treat as I also force them.
As a kid there is no better feeling than to see your parents or grandparents very happy about something. I cannot recall my grandmother being happier than when Lee would drive down to stay with her. Her housekeeping kicked into high gear before and many fresh pies were made. Lee always brought her dug flowers from his yard wrapped in wet newspapers in buckets and he would plant them around her house. Mema was not a gardener at all. These plants were her pride and joy as she would show them off to anyone that came by to visit. Here she is standing next to irises that had been planted by Lee. I have descendants from this patch of irises from under her kitchen windows.
These two large flower pots use to sit on each side of Mema’s front porch stairs. My family does not know where they came from as it didn’t seem like something she would have purchased. I suspect maybe Lee had brought them to her. Regardless, they are now treasure’s on my side porch.
My parents lived on the next street over behind my grandmother’s house as their properties connected. When we knew that Lee was visiting Mema, we would run over in the mornings to discover that he was already out for the day. Mema would smile and say that Lee was down on the ridge somewhere hunting for wildflowers. I love that at the bottom of that ridge is the creek where I fossil hunt and where the one-room school was that my grandmother taught at in her younger days. I can also see the spot on the ridge where a large cabin once stood that my father, Mema, Lee and my great grandfather were all born. I have homemade bricks from the cabin’s chimney made by my great-great grandfather.
Here is Lee with his youngest sister, Lucy, during what might have been his last visit to his and my hometown. He is about 90 years old here. (Great Aunt Lucy is a story for another time. Her husband died and left her with four young children. Lucy lived in a cabin on the ridge and to reach her house, you had to park and then cross a large gulley on a homemade swinging bridge. As kids we loved this!
This was Lucy’s oldest son c. 1966. He made several recordings.
Here’s a current screen shot of Lee’s former property in Muncie, Indiana containing a modest house which I never visited. I have no idea who owns this forty years later. The antique cast iron fencing continues for several hundred more feet to the right. I can barely see a structure in the woods behind the house and wonder if that might be his greenhouse. In continuing to the right through Google, I could see what appears to be an orchard. Also there are many different specimen conifers and trees scattered around the property.
I have written about Mema many times here including a diary about making Christmas wreaths each year with clippings from her magnolia tree. Great Uncle Lee planted that tree for her many years ago.
Below is Mema’s house on Main Street with the large Magnolia tree on the left that Lee had planted.
and this is Dec. 2018 after the bank next door bought her house and tore it down so vehicles would have a better view of their building while driving down the street. They did save Mema and Lee’s magnolia tree.
So many of you are now ready to scream politely ask “But GUG what about the scholarship Lee made!” I’m glad you asked.
Lee and Mema’s parents believed a higher eduction was extremely important. Their father had been a judge, co-owned a general store and taught school some as well.
Mema is circled below standing in the first row with her college class. She commuted over sixty miles one way to attend classes on Saturdays to get her masters degree in education while still teaching full time.
While cleaning out my parents house in 2018, an obituary caught my eye as I pulled it and others from a family Bible. It was Lee’s daughter but I never knew her. It was requested that any memorial donations be made to the Hammer Scholarship.
What? My siblings and I had never heard of this scholarship awarded to a graduating high school senior in our hometown. Being a small one red-light town, I drove over to the County Board of Education office and asked to speak to the School Superintendent. I explained my interest and was luckily escorted into her office and the financial director was brought in.
I was provided with a copy of the paperwork where my Great Uncle Lee donated a financial amount for a scholarship to be made from the interest earned from his donated principal. It was named the Hammer Scholarship made to one student each year with emphasis on citizenship, academic achievement and financial need. It required an application plus an essay of 250 words explaining financial need and future goals, as well as proof of acceptance to a college. The Board of Education was to determine the recipient. They showed two newspaper articles from that time that showed Mema, a teacher in their school system, with her brother, Lee, working with the Board of Education creating the scholarship. I was quite taken back having not known any of this. My siblings and I had already left home to explore the world when it was established.
I was informed that the scholarship had not been awarded for several years as the account had not been earning enough interest. I took care of two awards to be made that year. I also promised that since Great Uncle Lee’s descendants were apparently not involved in the scholarship that I would take it over. The name was changed to the Hammer and (my surname) Scholarship. I make up the difference each year for what the interest doesn't cover, so far twice.
This Hammer coat-of-arms was painted for Mema by our high school art teacher. It always hung proudly in her living room and now proudly hangs in my house.
Wow. What a renaissance man Lee was. And how I wished I had spent time with him and also had visited his gardens. I especially thank him for always making my Mema so happy. My mother always said that I reminded her of him. Yeah we both loved to explore caves and hills, gardens and animals and to spend time down on the ridge dragging all kinds of treasures back home. We also had welding in common as he oversaw welders as stated above and I was once a TVA supervisor overseeing welding inspections and testing at power plants. Every single thing I recall about Great Uncle Lee is contained in this diary and I will print it to send to my siblings so he continues to be remembered.
These were my recent February hauls from the creek at the bottom of the ridge.
My heart saddens thinking of Mema and Great Uncle Lee. But you know when I’m down in the creek searching for fossils with the only sounds being running water and birds, I look up at that ridge and it comes alive with my ancestors and instead my heart starts singing.