Jere O. Hamill, a retired insurance executive and World War II veteran who was a faithful supporter of Loyola University Maryland, died July 13 of complications from pneumonia and an infection at Oak Crest Village retirement community in Parkville. He was 93.
The son of Francis J. Hamill, a builder and contractor, and Marie Andrews Hamill, a homemaker, Jere Owens Hamill was born in Baltimore and raised in Homeland.
After graduating in 1940 from Polytechnic Institute, he earned a bachelor's degree in 1944 from Loyola College, now Loyola University Maryland.
During World War II, he volunteered for the Naval Reserve and was ordered to active duty in July 1943. He served as a gunnery officer, executive officer and finally commanding officer in the Pacific aboard the USS Gazelle, a Liberty ship that was disguised as a Navy tanker.
Mr. Hamill participated in the Palau and Philippine Islands campaigns and was discharged in 1946 with the rank of lieutenant.
"His Navy days were the highlight of his life, and he often regaled his children and grandchildren with stories of his Navy adventures. Some focused on the war itself but many more on the camaraderie he felt with his fellow officers and the many challenges he faced as a 22-year-old commanding officer," said his daughter, Patricia M. Hamill of Philadelphia.
Mr. Hamill returned to Baltimore and briefly worked with his father's contracting company before launching his career as an insurance salesman in 1949 for Aetna Life Insurance Co.
He later became sales manager and a regional sales director in Atlanta, where he was regional sales director for nine southeastern states.
In 1976, he retired from Aetna and returned to Baltimore and went to work as vice president for marketing services for American Health and Life Insurance Co.
From 1982 until 1992, when he retired, he was director of advanced markets for the Baltimore Life Insurance Co.
Mr. Hamill and his wife, the former Martha Sue King, whom he met on a blind date and married after a 10-month courtship in 1948, moved to a home on Hopkins Road in Rodgers Forge. They later lived on Midhurst Road in Pinehurst until finally settling into a home on Sussex Road in West Towson.
He was involved in many community organizations and was "one to reach out and believed in a life of service," his daughter said.
Mr. Hamill devoted his energies to Loyola University Maryland and Alcoholics Anonymous.
He and his wife met many of their longtime friends through AA, and he was a welcoming and understanding presence to new members, telling them his story to help and encourage them to remain sober.
"Alcoholics Anonymous "was dear and central to his life," said Ms. Hamill. "He received no less from those who had come before him and was grateful for the help he received on his sobriety journey."
Last November, Mr. Hamill celebrated 45 years of sobriety.
He avidly followed Loyola's basketball and lacrosse teams and remained a basketball season ticket holder until three seasons ago, when his health began to decline.
For his generosity to the university, he received the Alumni Laureate Award in 1992 and the Carroll Medal in 1999 in recognition of living his life by the "Jesuit ideal of being a man for others."
In 2012, he was given an award for his longstanding "volunteer leadership, personal philanthropy, and enthusiastic participation in the life of the University" and for the "grace and panache" that he and his wife "brought to their long-standing leadership of the Golden Greyhounds annual Dinner-Dance," for which he served as toastmaster for a decade.
Mr. Hamill was an enthusiastic traveler and his love of the water and ships dated to his Navy days. In the early 1950s, he began sailing and for years explored the Chesapeake Bay aboard his boat, the Serenity, which he named in honor of AA. He also liked chartering boats and sailing through the Virgin Islands with his wife and family.
He was a Civil War buff, a topic he had an "encyclopedic knowledge of," his daughter said.
Mr. Hamill had an insatiable curiosity when it came to maps and one day while studying a map of South Dakota, observed that there was a town named Hamill and wondered if there was any connection between it and his family.
He called the local librarian who told him there was no connection. But in the course of these phone calls, said his daughter, he "made a friend with the librarian." On a trip to South Dakota, Mr. Hamill met the librarian, her family and other townsfolk.
"The librarian and her family later visited my father and mother in Baltimore," said Ms. Hamill.
A memorial Mass will be offered at 11 a.m. Aug. 17 in the chapel at Oak Crest Village, 8800 Walther Blvd.
In addition to his wife and daughter, Mr. Hamill is survived by five sons, John P. Hamill of Baltimore, Kevin M. Hamill of Hyattsville, Brian T. Hamill of Marriottsville, Timothy F. Hamill of Atlanta and Terence G. Hamill of Lansdale, Pa.; and nine grandchildren.