Richard "Rick" Edward Hamman

Rick grew up in Palo Alto, California and graduated from Woodside High School. As a young man he held several different jobs including being a ranch hand, a carnival roustabout, a camp counselor, and a strawberry picker. Later, Rick enlisted in the U.S. Navy and served on a minesweeper, the U.S.S. Direct. He was stationed at Guantanamo Bay during the Cuban missile crisis. While in the Navy, he studied electronics and later worked for over 25 years as an electronics components engineer at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. In recent years, Rick and his wife, Sheryl had an online business, Yesteryear Depot, where he sold photographs and digital images of trains.

Rick had a lifelong interest in trains. He devoted decades taking pictures of trains everywhere he went. He researched and compiled a database of every railroad line that ever existed in the United States. Some of his works have been donated to various museums, including the Smithsonian. He worked as a conductor for a short-line tourist railroad, the Big Trees & Pacific. He also did the railroad signals maintenance for that railroad. For a short time he was the president of two railroads, the Sierra Pacific Coast Railway and the Eccles and Eastern. He authored and co-authored several railroad books, two of which are still in print. In his last years, he wrote several historical fiction novels which he published on compact discs. These novels are written in serial form, following the same characters from youth to old age.

Rick was a member of Zion Lutheran Church in McGregor.

Preceding Rick in death were his parents, Elmer Frederick Hamman and Juliet Florence Darnell Hamman.

Survivors include his wife, Sheryl Salazar of McGregor, Texas; three daughters, Laurel Ostendorf and husband Shawn of Spokane, Washington, Juliet Shear of Rocklin, California and Karen Hamman of Pacific Grove, California; two stepsons, Dr. Gary Salazar and wife Jenny of Hartsville, South Carolina, Larry Salazar and wife April of China Spring, Texas; nine grandchildren, Keith Marshall, Cassandra Mowatt, Victoria Shear, Lillian Dawkins, Kyle Marshall, Jonny Ostendorf, Fallon Ostendorf, Gareth Shear and Annabelle Shear; four step-grandchildren, Taylor Salazar, Zachary Salazar, Tyler Salazar and Autumn Salazar; and one great-grandson, Mason Lee Daniels.

A Celebration of Life service will be held at Zion Lutheran Church on Saturday, April 26 at 11am. Memorials can be made to the church.