We lost a friend

[Don Dahlberg]

Most of your probably do not know the name of Ron Hill. He was a volunteer at the NAWCC Library and Research Center. He was one of three that answered questions on watches. Ron also catalogued all of the Hamilton material we had (before the Ravel donation). He spent three years reading most every word of some 47 large boxes of Hamilton materials. He rearranged the material according to topic and made a master list of the material in Word. It was a huge effort.

NAWCC is about preservation of clocks, watches and horological information. He was responsible for making accessible most of the material known about one of the biggest and best American watch companies.

Ron died this week. We at the Museum and those who use the Museum and Library will miss him.

Don Dahlberg
NAWCC Volunteer

[Don Dahlberg]

Most of your probably do not know the name of Ron Hill. He was a volunteer at the NAWCC Library and Research Center. He was one of three that answered questions on watches. Ron also catalogued all of the Hamilton material we had (before the Ravel donation). He spent three years reading most every word of some 47 large boxes of Hamilton materials. He rearranged the material according to topic and made a master list of the material in Word. It was a huge effort.

NAWCC is about preservation of clocks, watches and horological information. He was responsible for making accessible most of the material known about one of the biggest and best American watch companies.

Ron died this week. We at the Museum and those who use the Museum and Library will miss him.

Don Dahlberg
NAWCC Volunteer

[terry hall]

Condolences to the family for their loss.

I am certain his contribution to organizing these records will not be in vain and will benefit horology for years to come.

[4thdimension]

Don, Thank you for writing about this and putting the spotlight on Ron Hill's contributions. His "huge effort" is , of course, a major contribution that will be appreciated for years but I'll bet he loved doing it too. To be the first person to get to dive into and organize the records of the Hamilton Watch Co. must have been pretty darn interesting!
-Cort

[Don Dahlberg]

Yes, I think he enjoyed doing it, but when offered to organize the Ravel donation, he declined. Once was enough. What he really loved was answering members questions like we have on this message board. I actually only met him once at Chapter 1. He worked Monday, Kathy Pritchard usually works Wednesday and I work Friday. Still there would be notes going back and forth as we compared answers on some difficult question.

By the way, he was the one who discovered the missing Hamilton Ledger pages on microfilm. The two rolls of microfilm contained mostly Hamilton stockholder list and similar business information. Stuck in three places were large sections of the missing Hamilton serial numbers, the dates completed and to whom they were sold. We are very fortunate for this "There might be a pony in here somewhere!" attitude that he had.

Don

[HenryB]

My condolences to the family.

We are so fortunate to have the Hamilton documentation records available thanks to the research that has been done over the years.

[Kent]

I didn't know about Ron until now. However, having learned about him, I sure appreciate his efforts and accomplishments. We all lose when people like Ron pass away and my condolences go out to his family.

[Marine]

My condolences go out to the family.