Rosemary Velia Hamman

Rosemary Velia was born on Monday, October 20, 1941 to Traian and Velia Lousie Mihaltian at Mercy Hospital in Canton, Ohio. She was born 3 months premature weighing 3lbs. Her 31-year-old mother died two weeks later. Soon after, her 31-year-old father entered the Army Air Force as a radio operator serving in World War II until 1945. Baby Rosemary remained in an incubator for 3 months before being brought home to 1735 Root Avenue, a two-story house heated by coal. She was lovingly raised by her immigrant maternal grandparents, Emanuele and Roseanna Salvadori, whom she affectionately called Pop and Mom. This was the home and people she grew up with, teaching herself to embroider on the front porch, learning to play the upright piano, acquiring a TV for the first time when she was in the 8th grade and soon after acquiring eye glasses, never owning a family car, burying cash in glass jars in the basement dirt, growing everything they ate, and taking a bus ride every Sunday to visit her mom’s grave with a seasonal flower.

In her teenage years a local neighborhood friend invited her to VBS. This led to her joining the Chrystal Park Methodist Church, and eventually to playing both the piano and organ during services. Upon graduating in 1959 as 85th out of 400 from Timken Vocational High School she began work as a stenographer for Timken Roller Bearing Company. Her attention to small details, keen ability to remember facts, and her proficient shorthand skills served her well all her remaining days.

At 21 she left Canton, venturing cross-country by herself in her 1960 Corvair to Seattle, Washington, where she began work in the Escrow Office. By 1963 she was working for the Seattle Times as a secretary in the composing room and was present when the printing press was halted the afternoon JFK was shot.

In January 1969 she met Richard Hamman, and by October they eloped. This 23-year marriage brought forth a son, Robert ‘Bobby’ Lee, and a daughter, Renee ‘Sissy’ Velia. They lived as a family of four nestled in the country on a 1.5 acre farm in Salem, Oregon. These were happy days for her of homemaking, writing and sending birthday/anniversary/Christmas cards, daily life amidst God’s ‘awesome beautiful creation’ (a phrase she coined and often wrote on cards), nurturing deep friendships with neighbors, learning to read God’s Word, getting baptized, and joining Faith Baptist church.

By the late 1990’s she sold her beloved home at 3678 Wiltsey Street, Salem, Oregon and became Ramblin’ Rose, traveling the United States whole-heartedly serving all whom she encountered. She savored the Summers and Autumns with Bobby and Melissa in Baker City, Oregon and shared the Winters and Springs with Sissy and Matthew in Longview, Texas. This allowed her lengthy opportunities to lavish her unconditional love for her 3 grandchildren, Angi, Jessica & Mark, especially with $50 bills tucked inside homemade cards and a listening ear to all their endeavors and adventures.

She was a passionate and devoted woman, wife, mother and friend, often claiming this was because she was part Romanian on her father's side and a mix of Italian and Yugoslavian on her mother’s. In her journalings she says of herself that she was addicted to statistics, facts, pictures, maps, etc. all her life. The boxes and bags she's left behind firmly attest to her dexterous skills of documenting. She proudly embraced the title of 'historian', weaving into conversations the oral chronicles unique to each listener. It was her form of therapy. Her continual hope and enduring faith were a strength and comfort as she aged into an octogenarian with its aches and strains. She prayed for the Lord to take her in her sleep, and He sweetly came in the wee morning hours of Tuesday, March 11, 2025 and softly took her into His eternal presence.

May these final thoughts from the Puritan Richard Baxter and the Apostle Paul, coax our hearts with sufficient reason to move our affections. Baxter reasons in his book, ‘The Saints’ Everlasting Rest’, that when the obstructions between the eye and the understanding are taken away, and the passage open between the head and the heart, surely our eyes will everlastingly affect our heart. As we view with one eye our slain-revived, Lord, and with the other eye our lost,-recovered souls and our transcendent glory, these views will eternally pierce us and warm our very souls. We will leave these hearts of stone and rock behind us and the sin that clings so closely (Hebrews 12:2) and we will be behold, as it were, the wounds of love with the eyes and hearts of love forever.

Paul says in I Corinthians 13:11-12, ‘When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.