Rachel (Anderson) Hamm

Rachel Anderson Hamm of Tarboro died peacefully on Sunday, March 12. She was born at her family home in Ringwood, in Halifax County, on May 7, 1931, the youngest of 13 children born to Mattie Archbell Anderson and Walter Williamston Anderson. In 1950, she married Ovid Hamm of Hollister and started a family. Moving to Tarboro in 1964, she began a career at Belk-Tyler’s, where she made many lifelong friends. After her retirement, she worked at Above and Beyond, an antique shop in downtown Tarboro. Beautiful herself and known for her glamorous red hair, she loved beautiful things.

The greatest pleasure of Rachel’s life was defined by her early happy life at Ringwood with her large family and by the many relationships that grew from the nurtured and continuing love and closeness of her brothers and sisters and their descendants. The Ringwood home was what home meant to her. She loved the country landscape and spoke of the spring sweep of violets under the peach trees, the vines with tiny pink grapes that she had never seen growing anywhere else, the flower garden with poppies and larkspur planted by her older sister Mattie, the swing in the oak tree, and the sunsets across the fields. Her favorite memory was of seeing the evening lights in the windows as she turned onto the curved sandy path leading up to the house. That memory, she said, was always home.

From that place came her love of family, of reading, of tending flowers, of coffee and conversation, and of listening. She was always progressive, in the 1960s subscribing to the Mother Earth News and modeling the first miniskirt that arrived at Belk’s. Yet she was also traditional and deeply connected to her past. Our Tarboro home was a gathering place for both sides of our family, with aunts, uncles, cousins, in-laws, neighbors, friends, and friends of friends spreading out over the porch and spilling into the yard. After her children grew up, she became a family storyteller and the keeper of family history, as well as her grandmother’s fruitcake recipe.

In our home, Rachel was strong, with unconditional love and high standards. She modeled what she and our father expected of their family: respect for all people, an understanding that we were not the center of the universe, faith, forbearance, humor, forgiveness, reservation of judgment, and endurance of hard things. She loved her husband and children, trusting us all to be ourselves and to love one another. Our home was always a refuge for us and for others: a freezer full of popsicles for the neighborhood kids, a toy box full of books, playthings, and a tiny tea set, rockers on the front porch, the certainty of comfort. She made sure that at our house the lights were always on.

Rachel is survived by two daughters, Jennifer Hamm Langley, of Macclesfield, and Daphne Hamm O’Brien, of Tarboro; and a son, Charles Brinkley Hamm and wife Denise, of Wake Forest. Two of her beloved children preceded her in death: Marshall Ovid Hamm in 1965 and Rachel Anderson House in 2019. 

She is also survived by six grandchildren and their families: Jonathan Crisp Langley and wife Emily, with their children Ava Marie, Kinsley Grace, Connor Ovid, and Ezra Cole, of Irmo, South Carolina; Emily Langley Taylor and husband Mike, with their children Mackenzie Lane, Maddox Reyd, and Landon Michael, of Concord; Anderson Draughon O’Brien and wife Haley, of Whitakers; Rachel Rebecca House and partner Jonathan Whitfield, and their daughter Lilah Gray, of Pinetops; Nate Margets, of Raleigh; and Amanda Margets, and her daughter, Vivian, of New York.

The family welcomes flowers or contributions to any charity of your choice.

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