Colleen McCluskey-Hamilton-Hart

Colleen was a devout Christian and beautiful person with a heart of gold. She was loving, kind, sincere, and sensitive to the people she loved and cared for. With her positive attitude that she expressed in her everyday life to her family, friends, and her career, she sacrificed her own needs to be there for others.   Colleen began her childhood in Brea CA. and teenage years in Lancaster CA. where she completed her high school education. She began her adult life by joining the U.S. Air Force to pursue becoming an Air Traffic Controller. After marrying Rod Hamilton, they lived all over the U.S. and Canada while he provided for them and when they lived in Montreal Canada, their first daughter, Christine was born. After her first husband Rod’s passing, she attended the Antelope Valley College Nursing Program and graduated with an AA degree and became an RN. She soon realized her true passion to be a Registered Nurse and began a career that lasted for 27 years! While working at AV Hospital, she met Thomas Ely and had two beautiful daughters, Katie and Sheri, with him. At the time of her death, she worked full time as a Hospice Registered Nurse, and she worked part time as a Dermatology Laser Technician in Palmdale CA.   In her younger years, Colleen was very adventurous and enjoyed spending her time hang gliding, scuba diving, and became a pilot with the ownership of her own Cessna Airplane. Colleen was a devoted wife and mother, and raised 3 daughters. After the passing of her 2nd husband, Thomas Ely, she married Don Hart who helped her raise her two young daughters, Katie and Sheri. Her daughter Katie was disabled and required specialized care 24 hours a day. For 20 years, Colleen and her family would enjoy an annual Beach House vacation in Ventura CA with the Ely family. Within the last few years, she was able to travel to Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse, Alaska, Canada, and Hawaii. Recently she traveled with Don up the West Coast from Southern California to Coos Bay Oregon and enjoyed the redwoods and wine country. Last summer she attended the reunions of her immediate family, the McCluskeys and the Riseboroughs in Ontario, Canada followed by a couple days in Toronto with her two sisters Janie and Kathy. Family was so important to her that she made every effort possible to attend all the birthdays and weddings of all of her children, grandchildren, brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, cousins and all her extended family. Colleen had the luxury of being in the lives of her daughters and grandchildren in Wrightwood on a daily basis.   Colleen has three daughters (Christine, Cathleen, and Sheri) a son (Thomas) and four grandchildren by Christine (Javan, Caleb, Elias, and Genevieve), and three grandchildren by Thomas (Isaac, Rose, and Jacob).