A house is where people live but a home is where people are loved. Sometimes, the bonds of family have no relation to biology. That’s why when a group of fraternity brothers learned their “second mom” needed help to retire, she didn’t even need to ask.
Jessie Hamilton worked as a cook at the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity house (affectionately known as Fiji) on the campus of Louisiana State University from 1982 to 1996. Though the single mom had three kids of her own, she treated the young men in her care like surrogate sons—listening to their worries, offering counsel, and even driving them to doctor’s appointments or ferrying them to the grocery store on occasion.
“I enjoyed doing it. They loved my cooking,” Hamilton told The Washington Post. “I was always there to talk things through with them. They’d come in the kitchen and sit on top of the counter and tell me their problems.”
Andrew Fusaiotti, who’s now 52 years old, was a Fiji brother in the late 1980s. “She was truly like a mother to us,” he told the Post. “She treated us like we were her own kids. She was always looking out for us.”
After leaving LSU, Hamilton found herself balancing multiple jobs to maintain her financial stability, a challenge she had faced since the age of 14. In 2006, at the age of 60, she took out a 30-year mortgage for a house she hoped to retire in, yearning for a place to call home. Over the years, she kept in touch with several fraternity brothers, including Fusaiotti, who now owns a car dealership in Mobile, Alabama. At the onset of the pandemic, Fusaiotti reached out to check on Hamilton and was disheartened to learn that she was still working multiple jobs, with retirement not in sight for her foreseeable future.Not doing something to rectify the situation wasn’t an option for him.
Fusaiotti reached out to Hamilton’s family to determine a suitable monetary goal and began rallying his fraternity brothers for financial contributions to pay off her mortgage and provide her with a financial cushion. With donations averaging between $600 and $1,000 from approximately 91 alumni, Fusaiotti’s efforts culminated in a total of $51,765 raised. Just days before Hamilton’s 74th birthday, the fraternity officially declared April 3 as “Jessie Hamilton Day,” celebrating the occasion with a catered party where they presented her with two large checks: one for $45,000 to pay off her mortgage and another for $6,675 for her personal use, along with commemorative T-shirts and koozies, all infused with love and cherished memories.
As Fusaiotti and the other young men whose lives Hamilton touched can tell you, sometimes guardian angels turn up in unlikely places—including the fraternity kitchen—where you’ll find them doling out generous helpings of fried chicken, red beans, and comfort that goes way beyond comfort food.
“She is the type of person that inspires me, people that don’t have a lot but give a lot,” Fusaiotti told The Advocate. “She’s the most giving person you’ve ever met.”