By Frederick N. Rasmussen , fred.rasmussen@baltsun.com|February 16, 2009
Ambrose Thomas "Andy" Hartman, former longtime deputy city solicitor for Baltimore City and a decorated World War II veteran, died Tuesday of pulmonary fibrosis at National Health Care, a Mauldin, S.C., assisted-living facility. The former Homeland resident was 83.
Born and raised in Middle River, the son of a carpenter and bus driver, Mr. Hartman was a 1943 graduate of Towson Catholic High School.
He served in the Army for 2 1/2 years during World War II with the 29th Division's 175th Infantry and landed at Normandy on June 7, 1944.
He was awarded the Bronze Star for meeting the standards for "courage and discipline between July 1944 and March 1945," and a Purple Heart after being wounded.
After returning to Baltimore at war's end, he enrolled at the University of Maryland and in 1951 earned his law degree from the University of Maryland Law School.
"He was something of a trailblazer. He was the first member of our family to attend college, which he did on the GI Bill," said a brother, James R. Hartman of Ellicott City.
Only two years out of law school and an assistant attorney general, Mr. Hartman successfully argued an Anne Arundel County criminal appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court.
The next year, Mr. Hartman, who was a part of the state's team of lawyers, gained additional fame when he argued successfully before the Court of Appeals that G. Edward Grammer had received a fair trial. Grammer had been convicted of killing his wife, Dorothy May Grammer, 33, the mother of three daughters, in 1952.
The defendant in the sensational murder trial was the last person to be hanged in Maryland when he was executed at the Maryland Penitentiary in 1954.
In 1955, Mr. Hartman left the attorney general's office and joined the Baltimore law firm of Semmes, Bowen and Semmes.
Four years later, Mr. Hartman, a lifelong Democrat, accepted a job as deputy to an old friend, City Solicitor Harrison L. Winter, who later became chief judge of the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals.
"The best years and the easiest years were in the beginning," Mr. Hartman told The Sun at his 1993 retirement. "When I first started, the city's problems were not as great as now."
In 1961, he once again left city government when he joined the law firm of Miles & Stockbridge but returned to City Hall during the administration of Republican Mayor Theodore R. McKeldin in 1964.
