Earl Hamner Jr. obit

Earl Hamner Passes Away at 92

 

He was not on the list.

Schuyler, Virginia - According to friends and family of Earl Hamner, the creator of the "The Waltons," Hamner passed away Thursday at the age of 92.

"The Waltons" is the story of a family making just a small amount of money from their saw mill on Walton's Mountain during the Depression Era.

The show was based on Hamner's life in Nelson County.

The family of Hamner's mother, the Gianninis, were immigrants who came to the United States from Lucca, Italy, in the 1700s. His father's family came to Virginia from Wales. Until the 1900s, the Hamners were tobacco farmers near James River, Virginia, when they moved to Schuyler, located on the eastern slopes of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Schuyler was a company town where the economy was based in soapstone mining by New Alberene Stone, and the town was hit hard by the Great Depression when the company and its mines closed. Hamner's father worked in the mines from the time his eldest son was born until the company's closing. After losing his job, Earl Sr. could only find work as a machinist at the DuPont factory in Waynesboro, Virginia, about 30 miles away. Due to the distance between home and work, Earl Sr. lived at a boarding house in Waynesboro during the week and traveled back to Schuyler and his family on the weekend. Taking a bus from Waynesboro to Charlottesville and another stop along the way, Hamner's father would walk six miles to the family home to complete his weekly journey. His walk on a snowy Christmas Eve in 1933 was the inspiration for Hamner's 1970 novel, The Homecoming, which became a Christmas special and the inspiration for The Waltons in 1971. During Earl's childhood years, the family (all except Earl Sr.) attended a small whiteboard church known as Schuyler Baptist Church. In April 2014, the church honored Earl with a special service in connection with the filming of Earl Hamner, Storyteller.

Hamner was in his sophomore year on a scholarship at the University of Richmond when he was drafted into the Army during World War II. He was first trained to defuse landmines and then transferred to the Quartermaster Corps because he could type. He served in France after the invasion of Normandy. He subsequently attended Northwestern University and then graduated from the University of Cincinnati with a degree in broadcast communications.

List of works

 

Novels

 

    Fifty Roads to Town (1953)

    Spencer's Mountain (1961)

    You Can't Get There from Here (1965)

    The Homecoming: A Novel About Spencer's Mountain (1970)

    Lassie: A Christmas Story (1997; co-written with Don Sipes, children's picture book story with illustrations by Kevin Burke)

    Murder in Tinseltown (2000; co-written with Don Sipes)

 

Non-fiction

 

    The Avocado Drive Zoo (a memoir) (1999)

    Good Night, John Boy (2002; reminiscences of making The Waltons TV series)

    Generous Women (2006; collection of memoirs)

 

Screenplays

 

    Palm Springs Weekend (1963)

    Charlotte's Web (1973)

 

Teleplays

 

    Highway (1954)

    Episodes of The Twilight Zone :

        "The Hunt" (1962)

        "A Piano in the House" (1962)

        "Jess-Belle" (1963)

        "Ring-a-Ding Girl" (1963)

        "You Drive" (1964)

        "Black Leather Jackets" (1964)

        "Stopover in a Quiet Town" (1964)

        "The Bewitchin' Pool" (1964)

    Heidi (1968)

    Appalachian Autumn (1969)

    Aesop's Fables (1971)

    The Homecoming: A Christmas Story (1971; for CBS)

    Where the Lilies Bloom (1974)

    The Gift of Love: A Christmas Story (1983)