Nathanael Hartwell Ames

Nathanael was born in the Bexar County Hospital in San Antonio, Texas, on
Monday morning, May 24, 1971, to Philip Mark Ames and his wife Anita Joyce Ames (Nee Cofran). At about four months old, he moved with his parents to Reno,Nevada, where his younger brother Ephraim Jezreel Ames was born on October 17, 1973, in Sainte Mary's Hospital. In 1978, when Nathanael was seven years old, he and Ephraim moved with their mother to La Mesa in San Diego County, California. The two boys then attended several schools in San Diego County. By 1988, Nathanael had completed High School and at the age of 17, with his mother's permission, joined the United States Coast Guard. In 1991 he was shipped overseas to the Persian Gulf to help protect the U.S. Navy during the first Gulf War. When that war ended he and thousands of others who had participated were brought back to America, where in both New York City and Washington D.C. they were highly honored for their service and were privileged to march in a very impressive parade. Shortly after returning to his home, Nathanael (and Jared, his life-long best friend from school and the Coast Guard) took a trip across the southern border to Tijuana, Mexico. There in a bar Nathanael spotted a beautiful young blonde, and struck up a conversation with her; before leaving, she wrote her phone number on
his arm. Soon the distance between her home in Whittier, California, and his home in San Diego was closed and they became husband and wife. Their first son Devon Thomas is three years older than their twins, Ephraim Hartwell and Breanna Hartsel. Breanna is now married to Matthew Hartsel and they have a one-year-old daughter named Mattilynn Marie. Mattilynn and her grandfather Nathanael have spent many hours in the joy of learning from each other. Over the years after the Coast Guard, through formal schooling and personal experience, Nathanael became extremely proficient in computer technology and made his career in that field. His natural ability to earn the respect and win the hearts of all his co-workers and supervisors soon took him to the top of his profession. And he became the manager and director of not only the technical division, but of the entire company where he worked. More recently, in a larger company, he quickly became the managing director of the technical department and was responsible for setting up and opening a branch in Northern California. A few years later, he was sent to do the same thing in Tallahassee, Florida. His wife Lisa Marie came with him to Florida and liked the area so much that they decided to sell their home in Southern California and move to Havana, Florida, just a few miles from the branch of his company being opened in the Capital city. All their children soon followed. Until recently, the whole Ames clan has been living happily ever after. But somehow in the last few years cancer invaded Nathanael's body, starting in his liver. It took a terrible turn for the worse in November of 2021 and Nathanael passed from this world and was taken to a better place on December 1, 2021. Nathanael was as wonderful a husband, father, son, brother, Pop-Pop and friend as anyone could hope to deserve. Loving, kind, patient, unselfish, loyal. These words were made to describe Nathanael.