Elaine Pearl Hamilton

Elaine Pearl Hudson Hamilton, born September 22, 1923, on the farm in Osage, Iowa, passed August 26, 2022, just one month shy of 99 years old. A farm girl who loved the outdoors, friends, art, and family most of all. Their grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins surrounded them all with love while living through the depression. Love bound them together.

She chose nursing as her career, St. Luke's School of Nursing in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and Cook County Hospital in Chicago. The women she lived and worked with during this time became lifelong friends with whom she’d often correspond and reunited for many years. Following graduation, Elaine enlisted in the US Army, with her basic training near Springfield Missouri. On August 14, 1945, she wrote in her journal, “When my grandchildren ask me where I was on VJ Day I can proudly tell them I was in the mess hall feeding my face.” From there she served as a surgical nurse at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington DC.

Following her service, Elaine moved to Hollywood, California where her brother Hugh lived, where she met and married Thomas Hamilton, riding horses. She and Tom raised their 2 daughters, Mary Isabella and Ann Elaine in Los Altos, CA. Here Elaine planted many gardens, installed a large pond, and cultivated a fruit orchard on their property. She taught Sunday School and offered sewing classes to neighborhood girls in hopes Ann would learn to put in a zipper (she never did) however Mary went on to obtain her degree in costume design and is a creative seamstress to this day. Elaine loved hosting annual birthday parties for the girls, welcomed their friends, groups, and clubs, and hosted tea parties and fashion shows in their backyard. She was known for her hospitality and kind spirit. Elaine eventually went back to work nights at the Stanford University campus clinic in Palo Alto. Here she comforted and cared for young people during turbulent years on college campuses.

After raising her daughters, Elaine enlisted in the Peace Corps, serving 2 years in Kenya, Africa. Here she also developed lifelong friendships while teaching nursing there. She hiked in her rainboots to work so she could slog through the mud on the way home. Kenya fueled Elaine’s passion for art and printmaking in particular.

Following the Peace Corps, Elaine moved to San Francisco where she worked in skilled nursing while she pursued her AA, then her BA degrees in liberal studies. Soon after Elaine retired from nursing, she ceremoniously threw her nursing pins off the Golden Gate Bridge into the San Francisco Bay with one Peace Corps friend. She then drove cross country with Bob and Naomi Kirk-Lawlor “Peace Corps friends” to Orono Maine where she became a part of the art community there and worked toward her master's in Artist Printmaking. She earned her degree from the University of Maine at the age of 70.

Elaine was a prolific artist printmaker, often teaching classes and sharing her studio space with fellow artists. All during these times Elaine frequently visited her daughter’s family (Ann) in the mid-west and eventually decided to move near them. This brought Elaine to Crown Point, Indiana where she had a studio in her apartment, and became involved in the art community, and the local Methodist church there as well. Elaine enjoyed studying the Bible making lovely friends there and helping Ann’s family.

When Ann’s family moved to Iowa in 2005, so did Elaine. She lived in several places, then with Ann & Rand until moving to Wesley Acres in 2018. Surviving the isolation of the pandemic was her greatest hurdle, but she had survived Polio as a young adult, Malaria in Africa, then Covid (twice). Ironically, she succumbed to a common cold in the end.

Elaine lived a full, joyous, and adventurous life. Her art and family are her legacies along with the many friends she made along the way. Her impact is not measured by wealth and influence but in the quality of her relationships. She embodied character and perseverance, we will see you in heaven once again sweet Mommy, Grandma, Aunt, Elaine, Friend.

“Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”
Colossians 3:13

Elaine is survived by daughters Maxine Hamilton, Ann Reynolds (Randal), grandchildren Nathanael (Astrit), Jonathan (Lindsay), Rebekah, Tyler Stapler, and great-grandchildren Reece, Sloane, and Amelia as well as her nieces and nephews, their spouses, children and grandchildren along with the entire family of the late Betsy (Mershon) and Keith Loveland from Ackley Iowa: John (Jeanne) Loveland, Lisa (Bob) Schultz, Sara (Ron) Smith, Janet (Tim) Hedberg, Paul (Sonya) Loveland, and the late Lynn (Helen) Loveland. Elaine was also preceded in death by her husband, Thomas Robinson Hamilton, her mother Pearl Mae Baker Hudson, her father Maurice Marshall Hudson, and her brothers and their wives Hugh Hudson (Phyllis) & William (Anne) Hudson.

Memories to cherish of Elaine:

My Grandmother's Lessons in Life

A Lasting Impression of Ms. Elaine Hamilton

In the artists studio

Unlikely friendship with a 95 year old veteran

High Trestle Ride

Why I Vote

Celebration of Life Service

Elaine's final resting place

Visitation will be held from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m., Sunday, August 28, 2022, at Hamilton’s Funeral Home, 605 Lyon Street, Des Moines. The funeral service will be held at 11:00 am, Monday, August 29, 2022, at Windsor Heights Lutheran Church, 1240 66th St. in Windsor Heights.

If guests are not able to attend the service in person, the family invites friends to join them virtually for Elaine’s service through Windsor Heights Lutheran Church Clink on the link for online services and it will take you to the church Facebook page.

In lieu of flowers, memorials may be directed to Crestview School of Inquiry Library, 8355 Franklin Avenue, Clive, IA 50325 in memory of Elaine. Cards and condolence messages may be mailed to: Ann Reynolds c/o Windsor Heights Lutheran Church,1240 66th St., Windsor Heights, Iowa

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