As a novelist, he is best known for Spencer's Mountain, which was inspired by his own childhood and formed the basis for both the film of the same name and the television series The Waltons, for which he provided voice-over narration.

After losing his job, Earl Sr. could only find work as a machinist at the DuPont de Nemours Company chemical plant in Waynesboro, Virginia, about 30 miles away further north.

Due to the distance between home and work, Earl Sr. lived at a boarding house in Waynesboro during the weekdays and traveled back to Schuyler and his family on the weekends.

Taking a bus from Waynesboro to Charlottesville and another stop along the way, Hamner's father would walk then the six miles further to the family's rural home to complete his weekly journey.

His walk on a snowy Christmas Eve in 1933 was the inspiration for Hamner's 1970 novel, The Homecoming, which became a Christmas holiday made-for-TV pilot film special, aired on the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) television network in mid-December 1971, (starring Andrew Duggan and Patricia Neal and the inspiration for The Waltons series beginning broadcasting its first episode nine months later in September 1972.

Hamner was in his sophomore / second year on a scholarship at the University of Richmond when he was drafted into the United States Army during World War II (1939/1941-1945).