Louis Martin Hamilton Sr., a longtime carpenter who helped build area houses of worship, his own home and furniture, died Saturday of heart failure at St. Agnes HealthCare. The lifelong Catonsville resident was 89.
After dropping out of high school in 10th grade, Mr. Hamilton ran a clothes-cleaning business and later was a bread deliveryman before joining the Coast Guard just before World War II.
"My father never graduated from school, he was just a [self-]made man," said Mr. Hamilton's son Patrick Hamilton of Catonsville. "He was part of a working breed, part of this country's greatest generation which is now dying around us."
One of his favorite stories was how he was on a Coast Guard boat going through the Panama Canal when the attack on Pearl Harbor occurred. What Mr. Hamilton thought would be a one-year service commitment turned into five years.
After leaving the Coast Guard in 1946, Mr. Hamilton held various jobs until 1949, when he agreed to work as a carpenter's assistant. Between 1949 and 1972, he worked for seven contracting companies.
In 1956, he took six months - laboring nights and weekends - to build a three-story, four-bedroom home on Longview Drive in Catonsville, where he lived with his son Patrick.
He was preceded in death by Margaret Brosenne Hamilton, his wife of 54 years.
Mr. Hamilton helped build St. Mark Roman Catholic Church in Catonsville and Beth Tfiloh Synagogue in Pikesville in the 1960s. He was out of work for more than a year after suffering a broken neck in 1966, when a scaffold collapsed onto his head.
In 1972, he took a job as head carpenter for the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine carpentry shop. He would stay there until retirement in 1982.
"He just enjoyed carpentry," his son said. "He made grandfather clocks and chairs, and he would make these things for everyone in the family."
A Mass of Christian burial will be offered at 10 a.m. Wednesday at St. Mark Roman Catholic Chapel in Catonsville.
In addition to his son, he is survived by sons Louis Hamilton Jr. of Woodbine and Timothy Hamilton of Gwynn Oak; daughter Rose Williams of Windsor Mill; nine grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.