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After 18-1/2 years on the job, the last 16 at the same corner, school crossing guard Sherrill Hamilton has turned in her special stop sign and fluorescent yellow jacket for the comforts of retirement with her husband Roy, who retired from United Parcel Service 10 years ago.
Sherrill Hamilton answered a crossing guard ad in 1989 when her youngest child, Keith, was in high school. She wanted to do something outside the home, but not full time. She recalls starting for about $6 an hour for five hours of work; most recently she earned $9.90. It’s not the money, though, that has kept her going. She truly loved the job and the children she served. Some are now grown and married; others are in high school and college. Often they’ll spot her on Main Street or even sitting on her porch and stop to talk.
Hamilton has been a fixture at the busy intersection of Harvest Road and Black Avenue, where hundreds of children cross each day as they walk to Walnut Grove Elementary and Harvest Park Middle schools. She knew most of their names and those of the many parents who often walked with them. She was quick to ask a child accompanied by someone she didn’t to make an introduction.
Only once has there been a “stranger danger” case, as the children called it. That was when she spotted a man sitting in his car for several hours in front of the Walnut Grove school. She notified police who found he was a drug dealer with a car filled with paraphernalia and pornography. He was led away in handcuffs never to be seen again. She has also joined parents in frantic–but always successful–searches for wayward children, most who simply got lost on their walk home. Others were back at Walnut Grove for an after-school function they forgot to tell their parents about.
Married for 41 years, the Hamiltons live in the same yellow-painted historic house on St. Mary Street which Roy moved into with his parents in 1949. The house was built in 1901 by the Orloff family, which owned the Orloff Dairy where Walnut Grove is now located. Grandson Tom Orloff, who is now Alameda County District Attorney, is Roy Hamilton’s childhood friend.
Many remember when crossing guards were children from the upper grades, who took pride in wearing special orange shoulder harnesses as part of a safety program sponsored by the American Automobile Association. But those programs were abandoned in favor of paid adult crossing guards as traffic increased, and especially in the early 1990s when the Pleasanton school district ended its school busing service. Hamilton said the number of children walking to school tripled and the number of cars with students being driven to school probably doubled, making the crossing guard responsibilities too significant for 6th and 7th graders to handle.
Hamilton, who has left home shortly after 7 a.m. each school day for more than 18 years for a 5-hour-a-day job that included lunchtime and after-school work, plans to sleep in a little later if she wants to and also take longer lunch hours with her friends. She and husband Roy also will have more time to visit their two daughters: Cynthia Jo Twiddy of Healdsburg and Nina Schrote of Williamston, Mich. The couple has eight grandchildren including their son Keith’s three who live in Pleasanton. Two of them already go to Walnut Grove and the youngest will start kindergarten there next August.
So Sherrill Hamilton said she’ll still be stopping by the school regularly, although this time as one of the many drivers lined up in the school driveway to pick up their students when school lets out.
Hamilton was often showered with presents from the children she protected at Christmas-time and again on Valentine’s Day. Last week, she was honored again, this time by parents, the Walnut Grove school staff and members of the Pleasanton school board, who gave her a special farewell proclamation thanking her for her years of service.
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Crossing guard Sherrill Hamilton says goodbye to a mother and her kindergartner from Walnut Grove Elementary School as she helps them cross Black Avenue at Harvest Road for the last time Friday. -
Walnut Grove students hold banner they made to salute their long-time crossing guard Sherrill Hamilton, who retired Friday after 18-1/2 years on the job. -
Crossing guard Sherrill Hamilton and her husband Roy (on right) join with other family members in accepting flowers from admirer at Walnut Grove Elementary School. Sherrill, who retired Friday, served as a crossing guard near the school for 18-1/2 years.
