CHICO — Routinely, a community icon has long served in elected office, has been highly successful in local business, or has been renowned for volunteer service, but Floetta Hamilton was none of these.

She was just “Flo” to most people in the Chico community and when news of her death at 83 began to circulate Wednesday, there was a flood of sadness in the social media.

While she was never homeless, Flo was a street person. She dressed in an eclectic collection of clothing and was known for her extravagant application of red lipstick and eyeliner.

Gary Daugherty, whose wife Pauline had the legal authority to make medical and fiscal decisions for Flo, said he had known Flo for 20 years.

Flo and her husband, Roy Hamilton, came to Chico in the 1950s and could often be seen walking all over town until his death in 1986.

She was a “night person,” said Daugherty. “She liked to interact with the night people.”

Chico police officer Terry Moore agreed. When he was working graveyard and swing shifts, he would often see her in City Plaza with the others who frequented the area.

One night, Moore received a “call for service” from Flo because somebody had stolen something from her cart. After talking to Flo, some of the other people in the plaza came to Moore to explain the police didn’t have to worry about this complaint. Flo’s street people friends would take care of her and the thief.

The veteran cop explained, “There’s a street order of law (down there). ‘Don’t (expletive deleted) with Flo.'”

Moore said the street people “just kind of looked after her and took care of her.”

Flo was known for saying what she thought.

In 1996, Laurie Maloney, wife of the former Chico Police Chief Mike Maloney, was doing a “ride-a-long” with a police officer.

“When he stopped the car by her, she poked her head in my window (of the patrol car) and asked if I saw what a nice (posterior) he had, then tried to convince him to get out of the car so she could look at it.”

“He laughed.”

Jim Secola, who worked downtown in many capacities over the years, had gotten to know Flo.

“She was a very nice lady. Anybody who took a minute to talk to her could not help but like her,” said Secola.

At the same time, “If you set her off, she was ready and willing to go!” he said.

“Flo sometimes had an explosive temper. She would make a muleskinner blush.”

She would talk to anybody who wanted to talk to her. The diminutive Flo would happily ask fellow grocery shoppers to get things off a high shelf for her and then she would strike up a conversation.

After injuring herself in a fall, Flo left the apartment that had been her home and moved into the California Park Rehabilitation Hospital, where she had lived six years at the time of her death.

“She is just a character of this town. I meant that in a complimentary way,” said Secola.

He is the administrator of a Facebook page called, “You know you are from Chico when …”

In 2011, in the group’s first effort to honor locals, Flo was named one of their first “Chico Icons.”

“She was very loved,” Secola said.

One person exemplified that love in a comment she wrote on the webpage.

A woman wrote, “When my sister was about 6, now 30, we ran into Flo outside of Safeway … In that moment, Flo taught my sister a lesson in kindness when, in her childish way, (the sister) called her a ‘bag lady.’ Flo bent down and said sweetly, ‘I’m just like you.’ My sister was puzzled but I understood. Thank you, Flo. Your kindness will forever live on.”

Newton-Bracewell Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.

Reach Roger H. Aylworth at 896-7762, raylworth@chicoer.com, or on Twitter @RogerAylworth.