Dr. Jack Hamilton and his wife, Janice, are up to their eyeballs in boxes and snow and seem to be bothered by neither. After 37 years as a local dentist, Hamilton recently retired and the couple has relocated to Castle Pines, Colorado, where the next chapter of their lives is just a few pages old.
“We’ve been in Castle Pines three weeks and have had three snowstorms,” Hamilton reported. “And it’s still fall! We still have plenty of boxes to open and we are starting to decorate for Christmas at the same time, so there is plenty to keep us busy.”
“Keeping busy” has been no problem for the Hamiltons. Dr. Jack maintained a successful dental practice in town since 1979 and Janice retired in 2015 after 41 years as a Registered Nurse in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Huntington Memorial Hospital.
But the couple’s story goes back much further.
Born a year apart, both grew up in Huntington Park, graduated from Henry T. Gage Junior High School and then from Huntington Park High School. Dr. Jack received his diploma in the summer of 1962 and Janice walked in the winter of 1963.
Jack attended Pomona College and graduated in 1966 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Zoology. Janice attended the University of California, Santa Barbara and then USC.
“Even though we have known each other since we were 11, our first date was the freshman formal at Pomona College in 1963,” Dr. Jack recalls.
Dr. Jack completed graduate work in Physiology and Education at USC and received a Lifetime California Secondary Teaching Credential while Janice was named valedictorian of her nursing school class at Pasadena City College.
Dr. Jack taught briefly at R. L. Stevenson Middle School in East L.A. and he and Janice were married in 1966 at Oneonta Church in South Pasadena, where the couple recently celebrated their 50th anniversary.
Though they had just bought a home on Sherwood Rd., the Hamiltons moved to San Francisco where Jack enrolled in dental school at the University of the Pacific.
“We rented a furnished, one-bedroom apartment in the Marina District for $250,” Dr. Jack recalled. “We had just purchased our home on Sherwood Road in San Marino and really wanted to settle there. I transferred after one year at UOP and finished at the USC School of Dentistry. If this transfer had not worked, we would have had to sell or rent our home on Sherwood Road.”
They didn’t, and San Marino is much better for it.
After graduating from USC, Dr. Jack connected with Kay Clifford, D.D.S., who was one of the original builders of the building at 1477 San Marino Ave. which to this day houses multiple dental practices. Dr. Jack bought the practice in 1979 and recently sold it to Dr. Ron Estrada, his longtime partner.
The Hamiltons have two children. Daughter Juliandra Rittmann has two sons, Max, 13, and Ryan, who is 10. Son Jack Hamilton III is married with a son, Jack, 13, and daughters, Dylan, 10, and Keaton, who is eight.
Juliandra lives in Moraga, California, and works for the Clorox Corporation, and Jack III lives in Highlands Ranch, Colorado – just 9 miles from Castle Pines – where he works for Dell Software.
Jack and Juliandra both graduated from San Marino High School. Juliandra graduated from UCLA and Jack attended Menlo College before graduating from Concordia in Irvine.
“Our daughter and her family are avid skiers, so they won’t have difficulty visiting us in Colorado,” Dr. Jack exclaimed.
“It still hasn’t dawned on me that we are actually here and that I have retired,” Dr. Jack continued. “I’m sure it will sink in eventually. As I was preparing myself for retirement, I told my patients that, even though I always enjoyed the technical and creative parts of dentistry, what I will really miss is the ongoing relationship with my patients. Living and raising children in San Marino has been a blessing, understood, I am sure, by almost everyone who has shared that experience. It is difficult to leave after 48 years in the same house. It is both physically and emotionally challenging to leave San Marino, which will always have the resonance of home in our hearts. However, family has always been very important to us and we are thrilled to be a part of our grandchildren’s lives.”
