BRYNOLF HAMMARSTROM SR. ’39
BRYNOLF HAMMARSTROM SR., a chemist who retired as the manager of the technical service department of the Tarkett Company, a flooring manufacturer, died July 18, 2008. He was 90 and was the brother of the late Eric C. Hammarstrom ’36. A member of Chi Psi, he was a conscientious objector during World War II and served in various posts as a smoke jumper and medic. Originally a chemist charged with developing a better floor covering using vinyl materials after World War II, he later moved into management. He was also active both professionally and in his community, serving as a founder of the Lehigh Valley (Pa.) Friends Meeting and continuing his commitment to peacemaking. After a bicycle accident left him disabled, he spent more than two decades as a volunteer in his community. His wife, Helen Bissell Hammarstrom, predeceased him. He is survived by his son, Bryn Hammarstrom ’69, his daughter, three granddaughters, and numerous nieces and nephews.
Bryn Hammarstrom Sr., 90 (Wes ’39), of Westminster House in Allentown, Penn., died July 18, 2008, at Samaritan House, a Wellsboro, Penn. volunteer-staffed hospice, with his son and daughter-in-law at his side. He was born Brynolf Hammarstrom on August 6, 1917, in Brooklyn, NY, the third son of Erik Hammarstrom, an immigrant Swedish engineer, and Inez Dahl, his Swedish-American wife. Bryn was predeceased by his wife of almost 50 years in 1995, Helen Treat Bissell, whom he married at Montclair (NJ) Friends Meeting in 1945, and three brothers, Carl, Eric (Wes ’36), and Sten. He is survived by his son, Bryn Hammarstrom (Wes, class of ’69), and daughter-in-law, Lynne Graham, of Middlebury Center, his daughter, Wendy Hammarstrom of Murrieta, Calif., three granddaughters, Emma Priya, Laura Sunita, and Marina, and numerous nieces and nephews.
He graduated from Ridgewood, N.J., High School, and then Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn., (’39) with a BS in chemistry. He was a three-letter athelete (soccer high-scorer in New England in 1938), and active in the Wesleyan Outing Club and in Chi Psi (both steward and president his senior year). His first job was managing an asphalt plant in Cleveland, Ohio, for classmate Bill Stilwell’s father, but preparations for WWII cut that career short. When he was among the first men drafted in 1941, as a Conscientious Objector to war, he was sent to an ex-CCC camp in Buck Creek, NC, where he worked with the National Park Service for two years. He then volunteered with other COs for the next two years as a Smoke Jumper in Montana, replacing the fire-fighting crews depleted by the war. And finally, he spent two years as a medic in Puerto Rico, using his chemistry degree working in a rural health outreach program, until released in 1946. He subsequently wrote a brief paper which he sent to Wesleyan on the high number of both Conscientious Objectors and non-registrants in WWII who had graduated from Wesleyan. He attributed his own pacifist understanding in part to Wesleyan’s philosophy professor Cornelius Cruse. In 1946 Bryn was hired by a Philadelphia company to develop a better floor covering, working with vinyl chloride and other “new” chemicals. In 1948 the Sandura (later GAF) company bought a factory near Allentown, and he moved from the lab into management, eventually running the quality control, technical service, and customer service departments.
Over the next two decades, Bryn was active in the Lehigh Valley both professionally and in the community. He helped found Lehigh Valley Friends Meeting, serving periodically as clerk, treasurer, and chair of the building committee. He founded and served as officer in local chapters of both ASTM (American Society for Testing and Materials) and ASQC (American Society for Quality Control). He led a Boy Scout explorer pack, worked with a local scientific mentoring program for high school students, and was a citizen activist in Lower Milford Township. He continued his commitment to peace-making, as a co-founder of an ongoing peace center in Bethlehem, and as a draft counselor during the War against Vietnam.
In 1970, while bicycle riding in his beloved White Mountains near Jackson, N.H., he apparently suffered a stroke, and was severely brain injured in the fall from his bike. After extensive rehabilitation, he spent over two decades as a volunteer for the American Friends Service Committee, the Bethlehem Council of Churches, the local Prison Society (driving men to look for work before their release), etc.
His wife, Helen, had donated her body to her alma mater, Temple University, but Bryn?s body was rejected due to the MRSA infection developed after a (broken) hip replacement two months earlier. Numerous efforts to find a way to honor his “Humanity Gifts Registry” wish failed, so he was buried the day after his death on his son?s farm in Tioga County, Penn. A small group of friends gathered there, and a memorial service was held at the Lehigh Valley Friends Meetinghouse on September 20.