Times: Hendrix’s ‘Auntie Delores’ passes away at 92

When an infant Jimi Hendrix’s parents had no place to live, Delores Hamm took them into her Yesler Terrace home. As he grew up, she continued to be a mother figure to him, according to an obituary in the Seattle Times.

He moved in with her again to attend Horace Mann Elementary on Cherry St, and often wrote letters to her as he grew up.

Hamm died Tuesday at the age of 92.

From the Seattle Times:

For Hendrix, whose childhood was marked by poverty and neglect, Ms. Hamm was a pillar of stability. She was the sister of Hendrix’s mother, and he called her “Auntie Delores.”

Ms. Hamm nicknamed Hendrix “Buster,” by which he was known growing up, because he reminded her of the cartoon character Buster Brown.

Ms. Hamm also took in Hendrix’s parents, Al and Lucille, when they had no place to live after Jimi was born in 1942. They all lived in her apartment at Yesler Terrace.

Hendrix lived again with Ms. Hamm in 1949, when he entered second grade at Horace Mann Elementary School.

Along with Hendrix’s maternal and paternal grandmothers, a friend name Dorothy Harding and a few other people in the neighborhood, Ms. Hamm served as one of the only real parent-figures the guitarist ever had. He often wrote letters to “Auntie Delores” when he grew up.

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