Mary L. Hammer

Mary L. Hammer

Memorial services will be held Saturday, April 10, 1993, at 2 p.m. at the Schrader Chapel in Cheyenne for Mary L. Hammer, 86. She died Friday, April 2, 1993, in Miami, Fla., following a long illness.

She was born July 28, 1906, the daughter of Lewis and Tena Bougsty at Sheldahl, Iowa. She moved with her parents to the family homestead in the Salem area of Laramie County (14 miles north of Pine Bluffs) in 1907. She graduated from Pine Bluffs High School in 1926 and soon began a long teaching career.

Her first school was the Romsa School near the Salem community where some of her first students were her younger brothers, John, Floyd and Lenn. She attended the University of Wyoming in the summer of 1927 and taught the John Federer School north of Cheyenne for three years followed by the Golden Prairie School near where she grew up.

In 1931 she filed on a homestead in Platte County across the Platte River from Cassa. She became the postmistress at Cassa while proving up on the homestead. Later in 1931 she married Ira Hammer and they operated a general store in Cassa while she continued as postmistress.

In 1943 a son, George, was born to Ira and Mary. In 1949, Mary resigned as postmistress and resumed her teaching career. Around this time she taught in Ft. Laramie for a time.

After two years of study in Greeley, Colo., she was awarded her teaching degree from the University of Wyoming in 1955. She continued her teaching career in various locations in Wyoming and Colorado. She retired from teaching in 1969 after many years in the Summit County School System at Dillon, Colo.

She continued to live at Silverthorne, Colo., after the death of her husband in 1969. She was active with the senior citizen group for several years. Due to ill health, she moved to Florida to be with her son George and family.

She is survived by her son, George, of Miami; step-sons Malcolm Hammer of Lusk and Marvin Hammer of Van Nuys, Calif.; two brothers of Cheyenne, and a sister of California, and several grandchildren and numerous great-grandchildren.

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