For someone who had his head in the clouds as often as he did, Benjamin Hammond was a remarkably down-to-earth guy. The Eau Claire aviator, business executive and father was a straight-talking, hard-working, fun-loving man who in early adulthood was half of a partnership responsible for a pioneering city airfield. The dusty south-side strip in later years would become the sprawling housing development known as Putnam Heights. At one point, Hammond recalled, he and his partner, Leo Watson, had the option to buy the entire property for $10,000, "but it might as well have been $10 million" to the cash-starved duo. Hammond, a resident of Clairemont Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, died May 30 at Mayo Clinic Health System in Eau Claire. He was 96. Born in Wausau, Wis., in 1919, Ben and his family moved shortly afterward to Eau Claire, where the family patriarch, Richard Hammond Sr., died unexpectedly. Left to fend for themselves were young Ben, sister Jessie, brother Richard and their mother, Irma, who was obliged to make ends meet on meager schoolteacher earnings amid the Great Depression. But survive they did, and meanwhile, young Benjamin was strongly lured to the aviation revolution sweeping the nation and world. Scrounging local flight time wherever he could, he developed "stick and rudder" skills that would serve him well for decades (although he did, by his own admission, once crash a sputtering plane into a leafy treetop near what is today Our Savior's Lutheran Church on Eau Claire's Main Street, walking away with only minor injuries). He was, however, by nature a very conservative flier, saying "there are a lot of old pilots and there are a lot of brave pilots, but there are very few old, brave pilots." Ben met his future bride, Jeanne Marie Joern, at Eau Claire's Union National Bank, where she was apprenticing. Courtship led to marriage on Feb. 5, 1944. The couple lived for a time in Texas, Ben serving as a wartime military flight instructor. At the conclusion of World War II, they returned to Eau Claire, where Jeanne worked at American National Bank and Ben eventually became a corporate co-pilot for National Presto Industries. He later accepted a position with Chippewa Plastics Inc. in Chippewa Falls as their pilot, flying a then-state-of-the-art Beechcraft Twin Bonanza. When returning from a business trip he would often "buzz" the family home on Hogeboom Avenue, waggling his wings and letting his wife and kids know that he would be home soon. His was a familiar face at Eau Claire Municipal Airport, now Chippewa Valley Regional Airport, in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. When Chippewa Plastics decided to no longer have its own airplane, Ben transitioned to traffic manager, and later personnel manager, at the firm. He closed out his corporate career as personnel manager at National Presto, where he oversaw the hiring of hundreds of employees as part of a major military contract to produce 105mm howitzer shells used in the Vietnam War. Ben loved a good steak, a thigh-slapping joke, almost any airplane (especially those made by Beechcraft and North American Aviation), a cold beer or dry martini, hot beefs at Tip's Hilltop tavern, music by Gilbert & Sullivan, Victor Borge or even the Beatles. Music was a constant in the Hammond household, whether it be classical, Mantovani, Mills Brothers or show tunes played on the family's Motorola console stereo — or better yet, piano music played live by daughter Roberta (sometimes in duets with her mom) or guitar tunes plunked out by son Bill, who picked up the instrument at the height of Beatlemania. Ben himself played a mean solo chromatic harmonica and could wail away on at least one piano piece, a tricky Chopin waltz that he learned by rote. Singing with gusto was also encouraged, especially at Christmastime, when Ben would hold nothing back while bellowing out the bass part to "Good King Wenceslas." In the mid-1980s, Ben and Jeanne retired to Port Charlotte, Fla., where as part of a relaxed but fulfilling lifestyle Ben would periodically take to the skies by renting a light airplane with an instructor along for the ride. On his 80th birthday, he flew a twin-engined Piper from nearby Boca Raton and circled the couple's home, prompting Jeanne to scurry outside and wave to him in her brightly colored housecoat. He "greased the landing" that day, his passenger son recalled. The couple returned to Eau Claire in 2008 amid advancing health care needs. They co-existed harmoniously at Clairemont from 2010 until Jeanne's passing in 2012. Ben is survived by daughter Roberta Joern of Eau Claire, son William Hammond of Roseville, Minn., grandchildren Krishna Paterson of Bayfield, Wis., Tor Sperstad of Eau Claire, Kendra Lilley of Greensboro, N.C., and Alexandra Upton of Penrose, N.C., and four great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by wife Jeanne, brother Richard Hammond, sister Jessie Bischoff and a grand-daughter, Erica Hammond. A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday, June 13, 2015, at First Lutheran Church Chapel, 1005 Oxford Ave., Eau Claire, with visitation an hour beforehand. A lunch will follow in the church's lower level.

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