Known during his time at Dickinson as Abe L. Hymowitz*, Hymes was born in New York City in February 1914 and graduated from James Madison High School in Brooklyn.  He entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1932 and graduated Phi Beta Kappa with the class of 1935.  While at the College, Hymes was a member of Sigma Tau Phi fraternity.  He then studied medicine at New York University and earned his M.D. in June 1939. 

A reserve medical officer straight from medical school, Hymes was called to active service after completing his internship in June 1941; he was assigned to the U.S. Army Air Corps.  After service in South Carolina, he left for the South Pacific in January 1942.  He lost his life on December 31, 1942, when the aircraft in which he was flying from Port Moresby, New Guinea to Australia was shot down into the sea. 

When Dickinson's Alumni Gymnasium was converted into the Weiss Center for the Arts in the early 1980s, Leopold Cohen, class of 1935, donated funds for the dedication of a lecture hall to be known as the Hymes Room in honor of his lost friend and classmate. 

 * Later alumni lists refer to Abe L. Hymowitz but by 1939 he had changed his name to Hymes.