Aaron Hancock

Aaron Leland Hancock died peacefully at the University of California-Davis Hospital in Sacramento, California, on Monday evening, November 28, 2022, following a massive stroke, surrounded by his wife, daughters, father, and a few other friends and family. He was 40 years old.

Aaron was born on August 26, 1982, to Timothy Coleman and Sherrie Lynn (Spencer) Hancock in Columbus, Ohio. He was the second of four children, and in the first years of his life his family also lived in Houston, Texas, and Louisville, Kentucky, relocating to Mountain Grove, Missouri, when Aaron was four years old.

Aaron met his wife and life companion Kayla Buchholz when they were both attending Mountain Grove High School, and their courtship continued through their college years in Rolla, Missouri, where Aaron received a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering at the Missouri University of Science & Technology.

Aaron and Kayla were married on May 21, 2006, and lived for several years in Columbus, Ohio, where he worked for American Electrical Power. It was here that the first of their two daughters was born: Rosalin Rashell on July 20, 2011. The young family moved to Tucson, Arizona, in 2013, where Isabella Marie was born on January 8, 2014. While here, Aaron worked for Sierrita Mine and Tucson Electric Power as an electrical engineer. The family relocated to Sacramento, California, in 2020, where the family still resides.

Aaron possessed what seemed to have been an effortless intelligence across many fields of endeavor. He was a quick study and excelled in the creative expression of both music and the visual arts. He was recognized as a leader in the high school choir, and with his trumpet in the band program. This extended into the academic disciplines of math, science, and reading. In his professional life, Aaron was recognized by his peers as a brilliant engineer, who was often able to immediately ascertain simple yet ingenious solutions to problems that were not apparent to others.

In every effort, Aaron was focused, motivated and brought a great level of intelligence to bear, especially when he liked what he was doing, but was nonetheless humble and quiet about his abilities. He possessed a great subtlety of expression—never drawing much attention to himself—a man of few words carefully chosen and quietly spoken. He had an active but dry and understated sense of humor, and if you saw him smirk, you knew it must be funny. Aaron loved reading, cooking, playing video games, listening to various sub-genres of metal rock music, and following The Ohio State football.

In the same way that Aaron was modest about his abilities, so too was he unassuming yet very genuine regarding his religious beliefs. He placed his faith in Christ at a very early age, and the cultivation of this personal conviction was steadfastly modeled and encouraged by both of his parents. For Aaron the depth of this was less often marked by any outward display, but instead flourished inwardly, the fruit of which was seen in the way he treated his wife, his children, his family, and his friends. He deeply loved and cared well for his family as a loyal and protective husband and father, son and brother, and readily made close friends wherever he was.

Aaron was preceded in death by his paternal grandparents, Charles Adrian Hancock (1976) and Helen Florence (Lyle) Hancock Perrin (2015); his maternal grandfather, Norbert Vergil Spencer (January 2022), and his mother, Sherrie Hancock (October 2022).

He is survived by his grandmother, Shirley Faye (Kaufman) Spencer; father, Tim Hancock; his loving wife, Kayla and daughters, Rosey and Bella; his three siblings and their spouses: Timothy Daniel and Samantha Koch Hancock, Lynn Marie and Stephen Mathews, and David and Nicole Hancock; and five nieces and nephews: Aria Jo Mathews, Cres Dale Mathews, Henley Rose Hancock, John Greenleaf Koch Hancock, and Coleman Kyle Hancock; and a whole host of family and friends who loved him well.