Thomas H. Hamada Obituary (1934 - 2016)

Thomas Hatsuo Hamada, 82, passed away on Monday, November 28, 2016 at his new home in Bloomington, where he had recently moved from Redding, California.As a veteran, he will be laid to rest at the Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery in Elwood, Illinois. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to the PATH Crisis Center in Bloomington, IL where one of his grandsons worked, or to the American Heart Association.He was born March 8, 1934 in Kohala, Hawaii, on the Big Island. His parents were Thomas Matsuo and Yoshiko Hamada. He is survived by two sisters, Jewel Carnett and Dawn Pung, a brother Hale, and predeceased by his brother Roy.Thomas married Barbara Daniels of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on February 18, 1956. Together they had five children, Pam Trozera, Nathan, Laura Hamilton, Kara, and a stepson Tommy. He is also survived and loved by 15 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren.After leaving the warm Hawaiian weather for college at Spring Arbor, Michigan, he joined the Air Force in June 1958, during which time he met his wife Barbara while stationed at Tinker AFB.Following his honorable discharge, he moved to southern California and began a career as a rail detector engineer for Southern Pacific Railroad. He later moved to northern California and settled in Redding, where he lived from 1978 until 2016.Thomas enjoyed the outdoors, and taught three generations to fish and hunt. He loved having a huge garden and his small ranch where he raised cattle, chickens, pigs, rabbits, cats, dogs and horses. The grandkids favorite story is when Thomas knocked out a horse in one punch while protecting his daughter. He loved working on his cars until those new fangled cars got computers in them.He was a medical miracle with 9 lives, surviving 9-way heart bypass surgery in 1985, then a heart transplant in 1996. You can honor him by please becoming an organ donor.His love, smile and mischevious gleam in his eye will always remain with us.