Frances Frazee Hamilton (Hallett) Pattison

Frances Frazee Hamilton, named after her grandmother, was born to Oliver T. Hamilton II and Miriam Wilson Hamilton in Vincennes, Indiana on January 22, 1923, oldest of three (siblings Oliver and Miriam). She died peacefully in her sleep in Tucson on June 7, 2014. She was 91.

Frances graduated from Tucson High School in 1940, and married Charles A. Hallett on March 5, 1942. Following his death at sea on June 18, 1942, she returned to the University of Arizona and her sorority, Kappa Alpha Theta, and completed her Bachelor’s Degree in Liberal Arts in 1944. She served in the United States Navy from August 5, 1944 to March 22, 1946. She married her second pilot, Karl M. Pattison on August 22, 1946 and started a family that grew to six kids: Miriam, Marylka, David (Malka), Ralph (Cynthia), Ann, John, and 5 grandchildren (Daniel, Andrew, Doniphan, Alex, and Dana). She joined the Junior League. The house expanded along with the family and Frances showed an artistic flair, painting furniture and rooms as needed, sewing clothes and curtains, and constructing dozens of elaborate birthday cakes. In 1966, the family moved to a large, but run-down house. Karl and Frances immediately began repairing it. Frances worked inside, stripping doorways and window sills to reveal the mahogany woodwork, painting, sewing, and furnishing, developing a sense of style that kept her browsing antique stores until the last years of her life. Pursuing an old interest, she took classes until she earned a Bachelor of Architecture from the UA in 1973. She also took a job with the United States Post Office. After her divorce from Karl (September 21, 1984), she lovingly worked on the historic house for another 25 years, toting buckets of hand tinted stucco up a ladder to the second story even in her seventies.

She was always a perfect hostess. No one felt unwelcome at her house. Large Sunday family dinners had been tradition even before the kids began striking out on their own. Holiday dinners became even more festive after the arrival of grandchildren, leaving fantastic memories for her descendants. Christmas had always been special, starring a large tree decorated entirely with her beloved glass ornaments, so beautiful that it inspired a Finnish exchange student to pursue a profession in glass. Every autumn, she spent weeks planting her lawn and flower garden with an eye to Easter. Like Christmas, Easter was all about the kids. She often made an extra pair of her legendary candy eggs and furtively hid them at the neighbor’s house for his kids to find.

Tucson life was interrupted by a two-year spell in Sweden in 1961-3, traveling to and from Europe on now-vanished ocean liners, settling into a rural house with a coal stove and learning to speak Swedish. Summer vacations in a VW van ranged from the northernmost point of Scandinavia to southern Greece, where she cooked meals for eight on a tiny camp stove and counter that Karl had built into the back of the van. She spent many family vacations in Mexico and her 25th anniversary in Spain. Later, she toured the U.S., the Mayan ruins, the and Ireland.