Birth: Jun. 8, 1910 Buffalo, Erie County, New York, USA
Death: Dec. 24, 2001 San Diego, San Diego County, California, USA

Zoe Hemphill was the wife of Thomas Melvin Hemphill. Zoe attended Kenmore High School and Alfred Univeristy. She was active in the Kenmore United Methodist Church in New York and in the Mission Hills United Methodist Church in San Diego. She moved from Buffalo, N.Y., to San Diego in 1935, because the firm her husband worked for, Consolidated (a former name of Convair), decide to build it's airplanes in California, where the weather was more suitable for flying and testing airplanes. The couple planned to stay two years, but they never left "sunny San Diego".
Zoe was active as a Cub Scout Den Mother and Girl Scout Leader. She was active in the PTA's of each of the schools her children attended. She was an active member of the local Book Club and a member of the Tuesday Club. Zoe assisted with the Heart Fund Drive for 17 years. She was also active in the local Republican Women's organization. She was a member of Contempos and the Methodist Women's Society. She loved her family and loved her church, and she was a great cook. 
 
Family links: 
 Spouse:
  Thomas Melvin Hemphill (1908 - 1971)
 
Burial:
Greenwood Memorial Park
San Diego
San Diego County
California, USA
 
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Created by: Zoe Tom
Record added: Feb 05, 2009
Find A Grave Memorial# 33561744

Birth: Jan. 3, 1908 Mississippi, USA
Death:  Oct. 15, 1971 San Diego, San Diego County, California, USA

Thomas Melvin Hemphill designed airplanes for Convair in San Diego. He was instrumental in the design of 18 different aircraft and was the Chief Project Engineer at the San Diego plant in 1944 and 1945. He graduated from Cornell University in 1931. He was a volunteer satellite tracker. He ran the radio telescope in Borrego on Clark Dry Lake. The San Diego Union ran articles about his satellite data on a regular basis, so San Diegans could see the satellites pass over head nightly. Tom was also a Cub Scout Leader and Boy Scout assistant and he set up Tom Hemphill's Technical Toys and sold educational toys through the local hobby shop. He was also a member of the local Radio Amateur Clubs - "HAMS", which helped to provide a network of potential emergency people during WWII. He was a Lambda Chi member while at Cornell, and aided his professor, K.D. Wood, in writing his first textbook on aeronautical engineering, while he was still in college. He also assisted with subsequent volumnes and is named in the credits. Tom was also very skilled at playing the saxophone and playing golf, and he had many golf trophies from California, New York, Florida, etc. He was also a very loving and devoted father and spent time with his children teaching them things that he felt were important. He was a member of the Mission Hills United Methodist Church in San Diego.

Thomas was born in Hattiesburg, Perry County, Mississippi. Hattiesburg is now is Forrest County, Mississippi.
Thomas was named after his grandfather, who was also Thomas Melvin Hemphill.
 
 
Family links: 
 Parents:
  Robert Herman Hemphill (1876 - 1941)
  Margaret Anne Edmondson Hemphill (1879 - 1915)
 
 Spouse:
  Olive Zoe Hemphill (1910 - 2001)*
 
*Point here for explanation
 
Burial:
Greenwood Memorial Park
San Diego
San Diego County
California, USA
Plot: Lilly Lake Lawn, lot 654 Grave 3
 
Edit Virtual Cemetery info [?]
 
Created by: Zoe Tom
Record added: Feb 05, 2009
Find A Grave Memorial# 33561304