Hank Mattimore

Priest, writer, newspaper columnist, dad and grandpa, Hank

Mattimore’s life has been influenced dramatically by the

many stories he has lived.

Growing up in an Irish-Catholic environment in Buffalo,

New York, he entered the seminary after high school. At the

age of 26, the young priest was sent to Japan as a missionary

and later worked in an inner-city parish in Florida.

Leaving the priesthood because of a strong desire to marry

and have a family, he married a Jewish woman, with whom he

had two children and now two grandchildren.

After a painful divorce, he eventually remarried but after

ten years of marriage, he lost his wonderful wife, Kathleen to

cancer.

After Kathleen’s death, he moved into the Children’s Village

as a live-in grandpa for twenty-four abused and neglected children.

He now lives with his foster grandson in Santa Rosa.

Mattimore is the author of five books, a memoir of his

days in the priesthood The Priest Who Couldn’t Cheat, Life is a

Growin’ Thing, Grandpa To a Children’s Village, Figuring It Out

As I Go Along and Legacy of the Heart.