Ledyard — It was only about a year and a half ago that Carol Hammer and the rest of the United Methodist Child Care Center considered adding care for infants.

And while she'd been at the helm for 44 years at the time, she still found herself breaking new ground: reading up on infant care and assisting her successors, Kathy Samson and Nancy Reilly, as they secured permits for the center.

Now the infant room is full, Hammer said.

"We didn't have kids that cry as much as the parents when they're walking out," she added.

The founder of the UMCCC since its inception, Hammer has become synonymous with the institution for the past 45 years, and celebrated her last day on June 29. The United Methodist Church in Gales Ferry will be hosting a reception on Sunday, July 16, to honor her tenure.

Hammer was a psychology major in college and first taught special education in Pennsylvania. She later received her master's degree in educational psychology from the University of Connecticut. She and her husband, Arthur, moved to Ledyard in the late 1960s, and raised five children, including two foster children.

Hammer started her preschool with three of her own young children in the former Pheasant Run Swim Club on Long Cove Road. It was a temporary arrangment: her husband designed all the school's furniture and built it so it could be folded up and cleared away on the weekends when the club had events.

The preschool was one of the only ones in the area, and in 1972, Pastor Gail Williamson of the United Methodist Church approached Hammer and asked her if she was interested in moving her operation to the church's new facilities on Chapman Road.

The UMCCC opened in September 1972 as a nonprofit preschool, and has remained a nonprofit since.

While initially operating only during school hours, soon after the center opened, the needs of the community grew, and so did the center.

For a time, most people who needed someone to watch their children during the day were teachers, Hammer said. But with women entering the workforce in greater numbers from the 1970s onward, children increasingly were being born into families with two working parents.

Hammer and the child care center moved to fill the need, soon adding early morning and after-school care.

Her special education background also meant the school has always been "inclusive for all children," including those with special needs. She piloted a program that brought toddlers together with special needs children, and continued to run it even when state funding dried up.

Though the child center never advertised, its reputation soon spread by word of mouth among Navy families in the area. Soon the center started receiving calls from far-off places like Hawaii and Guam, asking if the facility had space, former teacher Joanne Moorehead said.

Moorehead, who taught alongside Hammer for 20 years, credited Hammer with spearheading the center's many hands-on learning experiences: like teaching kids how to card wool, as well as arranging a visit from some live — and harmless — snakes.

She said that Hammer was observant and thoughtful when it came to the development of each student.

"When she's observing a class, she'll be going through a whole bunch of parameters for each student in her head," she said. "It's so much fun to watch her in a class."

Reilly, the infant room supervisor who took over for Hammer in July along with Kathy Samson, described Hammer as "quiet and unassuming."

"When you get to know her, you get to know what a big heart" Hammer has, she said, adding "she takes ultimate joy with those kids."

On June 29, as Hammer marked her last day as director of the child center, she remained as sharp-eyed as ever on the job — checking in on three 1-year-olds, who came up to rattle the child-safety fence in the door, and some 4-year-olds who were constructing an elaborate pipeline structure around the floor of the preschool.

While Hammer said she didn't feel like she needed to retire, with Reilly and Sampson ready to take the helm, the timing felt easier and gave her the ability to take on her own projects at the center. Hammer plans to stay on to help out during the weekends and teach a yoga class to the young students.

"You just have to do it eventually, if you find the people to take over and they have their (own) dream," Hammer said.

n.lynch@theday.com