Rev. James Dean Hammerlee

Rev. James Dean Hammerlee, 92, died Saturday, Nov. 26, 2022, at Wesbury United Methodist Community in Meadville, PA, with family by his side.

Jim was born at home in Polk, Pennsylvania, on Aug. 31, 1930 to George Glenn and Mildred Anna (Weaver) Hammerlee.

He graduated salutatorian of Franklin, PA High School (1947) and earned a B.A., magna cum laude, from Grove City College (1952) and an M.Div. from Yale University Divinity School (1958).

At Grove City, Jim was a brother in both the Epsilon Pi fraternity and the Omicron Delta Kappa honorary fraternity. His involvement in an active, interdenominational Christian Association led to his becoming, in 1951, the state president of the National Methodist Student Movement, and to his considering a future career in ministry or overseas missionary service.

Immediately following his June 1952 graduation, Jim enrolled in a program, "A-3", begun by the Methodist Church USA. A-3 was actually a precursor to the U.S. Peace Corps. Following a period of study in the states, he and the other A-3s were sent to several foreign countries. Jim went to West Pakistan to teach English to village students, both Christian and Muslim, in a boarding school near Lahore. In a later part of his assignment, he worked at a hospital where victims of the 1947 Hindu-Muslim violence were being treated. His experiences in Asia did much to inform his lifelong advocacy for social justice.

After his first overseas term, Jim returned to the states where, from 1955 to 1958, he studied at Yale University Divinity School. After receiving a Master of Divinity degree, he was ordained an elder in the Erie Conference of The Methodist Church.

For two years beginning 1958, Jim was associate pastor at Old Stone Methodist Church in Meadville, PA, where he first met Betty Snyder, a church secretary with two young daughters from a previous marriage. In 1960, he returned to West Pakistan as an educational and church development missionary with the Methodist Church, and while he became fluent in Urdu, Jim and Betty exchanged hundreds of airmail letters which the family still has.

They were married in May 1963 in Multan, West Pakistan, honeymooned in Kashmir, and by July 1965 had two sons. After two years in the Punjabi desert town of Khanewal, the family of six returned stateside for good. Jim and Betty faithfully attended biannual reunions with dozens of other Americans who had served together overseas.

In 1966, Jim began a 26-year career at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, PA. His assignments and titles there were many: executive secretary of the Christian Association (C.A., later Concern and Action); advisor to international students; Director of Student Activities and the newly-built University Center; Coordinator of Cultural Events and Summer Conferences; Director of Weis Center for the Performing Arts; three separate terms as University Chaplain; and Assistant to the President.

Jim was awarded the Burma-Bucknell Bowl Award in 1978 for his outstanding contributions to international understanding, and the Harriman Award in 1981 for his many contributions to the cultural life of Bucknell and the Lewisburg community. Possibly among those cultural contributions was his exuberant, cartwheeling portrayal of Ko-Ko, The Lord High Executioner, in a 1973 Cap & Dagger production of “The Mikado.” More likely a factor was his introduction of England’s Fitzwilliam String Quartet, first at Bucknell, then later to classical music circles in New York City and beyond.

As a pastor, Jim performed many weddings of couples who met at Bucknell, among them Jim Morrell and Karen Olsson, who in 2000 established the Morrell Family Scholarship in his honor. The Class of 1970, freshmen when Jim started at Bucknell, dedicated their 1970 yearbook to him, writing, “He is one of the warmest, most understanding, least pretentious human beings [we] have ever met. His work with Bucknell students in the C.A., his enthusiasm, and his concern for active, interpersonal involvement all serve to provide each B.U. student with the opportunity to give of himself, expecting no other satisfaction than that of working, doing, and caring with other people.”

Jim volunteered for the Lewisburg Prison Project and Habitat for Humanity, and was President of the Lewisburg chapter of the Association for Retarded Citizens (Arc).

In 1996, after three decades in Lewisburg, Jim and Betty returned to their northwest PA roots, built a home at Wesbury in Meadville, and rejoined the congregation at Stone Methodist Church. As more years passed, they worshipped closer to home at Wesbury.

Jim began singing at 5 and never stopped. He sang in the choirs at Stone and at Beaver Memorial UMC in Lewisburg, and in the motet choir at the Chautauqua Institution in western NY, where he and Betty spent many full summer seasons immersed in music, friends, and faith.

A lifetime member of the Barbershop Harmony Society, Jim (and Betty) traveled to annual conventions in New Orleans, Salt Lake City, Calgary, and even Plymouth, England. Closer to home, Jim sang with Bucknell friends in a foursome called “The Academic Quad.”

Jim had a lifelong love for cooking, gardening, and the performing arts, but above all, an enthusiastic, irrepressible love for people. He regularly learned the life story of a sales clerk, then relayed it to someone he met on a bus. He was an inveterate planner, and he never made a plan he didn’t immediately start to improve. People who loved him knew he not only brightened any room he entered, but also usually followed up by rearranging all the furniture.

Jim is survived by his wife of 59 years, Elizabeth Snyder Hammerlee; son J. Bruce Hammerlee, daughter Dr. Amanda Bagnato and her husband Gary, and daughter Carol Brong and her husband Douglas; a brother, Robert M. Hammerlee; four grandchildren, Stefan Bagnato, Katy Bagnato Randall, Jarem Bagnato and Gretl Brong; four great-grandchildren; a niece and a nephew, and many lifelong friends.

He was preceded in death by a brother, Rev. Glenn W. Hammerlee; and a son, Edward G. Hammerlee.

The family wishes to thank Kindred Hospice of Crawford County and the nursing staff of Wesbury’s Grace Health Center for their devoted care of Jim.

There will be a celebration of Jim’s life at Stone United Methodist Church in Meadville, PA, at 2 p.m. on Friday, Apr. 14, 2023. Flowers will be provided by the family, who suggests memorial contributions may be made to the Wesbury Foundation, 31 North Park Avenue, Meadville, or to Stone United Methodist Church, 956 S. Main Street, Meadville.

Arrangements are under the direction of Robert W. Waid Funeral Home, 581 Chestnut St., Meadville. Memories and condolences may be shared at www.waidfuneralhome.net.