Sunday's Obituary - Mrs. Alice Hansen

I didn’t know Alice Hansen.  But the reason this obituary is meaningful to me is that I did have the honor of knowing, for just a bit, her son Anders. 

I met him in his later years because his late in life marriage prompted him to convert to Catholicism, and that is when we ran into him at church.  Andy and his wife Natalie lived in the sparsely populated hills of Newfield, NY.  We visited them on occasion, and then him a little more often after Natalie passed away.  He proudly showed us the variety of vegetables and berries growing in his garden, and always insisted we take something home with us.

Andy had some disabilities that I suspect provided him many challenges in his life.  We enjoyed the company of this kind intelligent person; a person who didn’t let his disabilities deter him from enjoying life.

It is interesting how these distant memories are invoked by reading an obituary of a person I never knew. 

Obituary of Mrs. Alice Hansen

Mrs. Alice Hansen, 61, of Seely Hill, Newfield, died unexpectedly Saturday, Jan 24, 1953 at Tioga General Hospital, Waverly.  She is survived by her husband, Jens Hansen of Newfield: two sons, Anders and Harold Hanson, both of Newfield; two sisters, Mrs. Corine Brennan and Mrs. Muriel Curry of Sebastopol, Calif; two brothers Louis and Fulton Hardmann of New York City; a half sister, Miss Everetta Waters of Montreal, Quebec, and 4 nieces. Funeral services will be held at 2:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Allen Funeral Chapel, Newfield, with John C. Booth, Jehovah’s Witnesses, officiating. Burial will be in Jehovah’s Witnesses Cemetery, Lansing Road.

Bearers were Andrew Patana, John Goodwin, Wesley Crance, Waino Knuutila, George Ruuspakka and William Brashear.