Charles Melvin Hanson

Charles Hanson Dies at 97

Funeral service for Charles M. Hanson, 97, who died June 15, in Custer, S. D., was held in the Shared Ministry Church in Edgemont, S. D., June 19. Rev. Harry C. Meyer conducted the service.

Darlene Bastian played an organ prelude of "Home on the Range" and also accompanied Mary Amendola who sang "He Touched Me" and "His Eye Is on the Sparrow."

Casket bearers were Julius Peterson, Russell Christensen, William Bailey, James Reed, Glenn Hanson and Samuel Rennard. Burial was in the family plot in the Lusk Cemetery.

Charles Melvin Hanson was born August 15, 1876, at Loatto, Ind., a small milling village eight miles from Ft. Wayne, the son of Issac N. and Levina Hanson. His parents moved to central Nebraska in 1879 where his mother died five years later. He lived with a number of families until he was 16, when he came to Cheyenne to live with his father.

He took a job at the Wilkinson Ranch in Pine Bluffs and in the fall of 1896 he and James Hammell trailed 4000 head of sheep to the Bridle Bit Ranch on the Cheyenne River. In 1900 in partnership with Wilkinson he settled on that ranch.

On February 5, 1904, he married Francis Frazier at Newcastle and they later established a ranch on her homestead which adjoined the Bridle Bit on the south. She died in 1945 but he continued to live on the ranch until he moved to Edgemont in 1964. In 1969 it became necessary for him to go to a nursing home in Hot Springs and December 1, 1973 he was transferred to Colonial Manor in Custer, S. D., where he died.

He is survived by a son Charles N. Hanson of Cheyenne, a step son William Frazier of Spokane, Wash., a grandson Tom Hanson of Cheyenne, a granddaughter Mrs. Mary Amendola of Greeley, Colo., two great granddaughters and numerous grandchildren of the Fred and William Frazier families and a brother Quincy Hanson of Broken Bow, Neb.

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