A lot of grown-ups who spent their childhoods in Cullman lost a key piece of their past this week with the passing of Margaret Hamrick.

Hamrick, who for four decades at her Kiddy Land Daycare imprinted on local children her civic-minded and intuitively wholesome grasp of what childhood ought to be, passed away on Feb. 28. She was 85.

For generations of kids fortunate enough to go to Kiddy Land, “Miss Ham” and her small staff provided a safe-as-houses place to play, to learn how to get along, to respect their elders, and even to get a head start on early-life academics. They also afforded just the right measure of opportunity for the occasional scraped knee or bout of wounded playground pride — innocent risks that taught kids the value of life experience and benign hard knocks during their most formative years.

Hamrick was never an absentee shareholder in the kids’ place she created, and her values and personality — on display every day as she and her staff kept things on schedule — lent Kiddy Land a specific culture; a recognizable sense of place that continues to unite many of its former students even in adulthood. Hamrick opened Kiddy Land in 1973, and kept the doors open long enough to take in the children of many of her earliest pupils. She retired in the summer of 2012.

Funeral Services for Margaret Camp Hamrick will take place at 2 p.m. today in the chapel of Moss Service Funeral Home, with Rev. Tom Richter officiating. Burial will follow in the Cullman City Cemetery. A viewing will be held at the funeral home from 12 p.m. today until the start of the funeral service.

Hamrick passed away on Sunday, Feb. 28, surrounded at her home by her family. Born Jan. 11, 1936 to Carl and Georgia Camp, she is preceded in death by her husband, John Wendell Hamrick, Sr.; her parents; brothers: S.C. Camp, Clifford Camp and Fred Camp; sisters: Lorene Scott, Theolene Hill, Mildred Lambreth and Jean Roberson. Hamrick is survived by two daughters, Tracy Hamrick and Deborah Singleton; one son, John Hamrick, Jr.; one grandson, Josh (Maria) Singleton; two great-granddaughters; Kate Singleton and Caroline Singleton, and a host of loving family and friends.

Condolences and special memories of Miss Ham may be shared with the Hamrick family at mossservicefh.com.