Gloria Marilyn Hamilton

1929 - 2020

May 13, 1929 - June 27, 2020 The indomitable, well-loved and ever-inspiring Gloria Hamilton, 91, left us on June 27, 2020 at 2:01 in the afternoon at her home in San Diego, following a spirited and heroic battle with vascular dementia. She began her own memoir with these words by TS Eliot: "AND DO NOT CALL IT FIXITY, WHERE PAST AND FUTURE ARE GATHERED. NEITHER MOVEMENT FROM NOR TOWARDS, NEITHER ASCENT NOR DECLINE. EXCEPT FOR THE POINT, THE STILL POINT, THERE WOULD BE NO DANCE, AND THERE IS ONLY THE DANCE."The Dance began when Gloria was born in Brantford, Ontario Canada on May 13, 1929. An immigrant child, she moved with her mother Hilda and sister Norma to the United States in 1931. Her father Roy, whom she never met, had died at the young age of 30. She grew up in Los Angeles, in the embrace of her mother and sister, her stepfather Frank Moore, her brother Derry Moore, and her cockney- voiced grandmother "Nanny" Beatrice Careswell. As a young woman Gloria worked for "the phone company" (apparently there was only one!) and later for the Burbank Review newspaper. She met her husband, television producer Joe Hamilton, in high school, and together they began an adventurous life that eventually took them to New York. Gloria and Joe had eight children as well as 15 grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren. Gloria loved New York and quickly mastered trains and taxis, often packing her kids up for museum visits, Broadway shows, and volunteer Head Start jobs. Later, when she became single, she continued to pack up her kids and any willing stragglers in her station wagon and would take off for historic sites in the Amish country, Sleepy Hollow, Washington DC, and nearby Mount Vernon. One summer she rented a rambling farmhouse in the Berkshires, complete with skittering mice and regular power outages; but Tanglewood Lake was nearby and evenings with all her kids were spent on the grass with picnic dinners listening to the Boston Symphony. To this day, her kids recall the special times there. Later, when she moved back to California, she continued the family tradition of summer vacations in new places- Brooktrails, Palm Springs, Seal Beach and Dillon Beach. As a single woman in the 1960s, with eight children in tow, these were monumental undertakings; back then hotels often wouldn't provide rooms to single women, and a belated requirement in her divorce settlement involved getting her a credit card. In her own name.As Gloria's awareness of political unrest and conflagration grew, she joined efforts to quell civil rights abuses, and to support anti-war struggles. Gloria became a devoted pacifist; the '70s brought the "Ah Ha" moments of emerging feminism, and Gloria also became a proud and determined feminist. In the early 80's, her daughter Nancy recalls Gloria hosting a first-of-its-kind "Beyond War" gathering by telephone with people from Russia and the US speaking together, decades before technology made this seem like a possibility. Finally, after years of keeping her Canadian citizenship so her sons would have somewhere to go as an alternative to the Vietnam War (luckily they never faced the choice), in 2004, Gloria became a US citizen, so she could vote. One of her proudest achievements was serving as her neighborhood's precinct captain in support of Barack Obama. She was nearly 80 years old as she canvassed her neighborhood.Throughout her life, Gloria was known to "adopt" and welcome into her home all travelers, women needing a new start, step-kids, and friends of her children and grandchildren. If you came into Gloria's orbit, you were there for life. Gloria's family homes were filled with music, sleeping bags, gatherings around a large dining table, and endless board games. And, GMA, as she was sometimes called, loved all sports and often spent happy weekends with family watching football, basketball, baseball or golf. Her love of sports was eclipsed only by her loyalty to Jeopardy, which she watched faithfully since its inception in 1964, often besting the on-air competitors. Gloria was also known for her generosity and compassion, her ease with acceptance and forgiveness. Later, having embraced Buddhism and briefly a Wiccan practice, she searched earnestly to understand the universe, its magic, and ways to be at peace – both internally and around the globe. Walking, Tai Chi and meditation centered her commitment to wellness; and shelves of books on American and world history alongside feminist volumes, shaped her growth, and anchored her commitment to equality.In her final weeks, she was surrounded by her five surviving children – Kathleen, Judith, John (Marion), Jenni and Nancy, as well as many of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She was comforted by caregivers from Windward Life Care, and the Sharp Hospice team. Gloria was predeceased by three of her children – Dana (Don), Joe and Jeffrey (Susan). In her own memoir she wrote, "If I leave a legacy, let it be to understand the reasonableness of peace."Family hopes to have a celebration of Gloria's life when public health concerns permit. And for those who have asked, Gloria was a lifelong supporter of the ACLU and the Southern Poverty Law Center.