Glenn Eric Hanson

Glenn Eric Hanson

Funeral services for Glenn E. Hanson, 89, were held at 10 a.m. April 28 at Newcastle Senior Center with Rev. Wayne Wilson officiating. Burial followed at the Hanson Ranch in Niobrara County with Pastor Gary Walker officiating. The family prefers memorial contributions to the Hanson Research Station for a dinosaur exhibit at the Anna Miller Museum in Newcastle. Worden Funeral Directors were in charge of the arrangements.

Mr. Hanson died April 24 at Weston County Health Services in Newcastle. Glenn Eric Hanson became the final addition to the family circle of Henrick and Roxie (Freel) Hanson on July 30, 1917 in Newcastle, joining a brother Floyd, and a sister Olive.

The family home is on the Cheyenne River at the northern edge of Niobrara County, where Glenn grew up. As a boy he helped his dad milk seventeen cows by hand before and after school, walked to and from school, helped his mother in the Roxson Post Office and store and spent many happy days riding his pony. He later stayed with his grandparents, Jesse and Alvada Freel, and again walked into town to attend high school.

On August 14, 1939, he married Phyllis Marie Austin, his lifelong sweetheart and business partner. Together they built up their ranch, their family and their life. He trailed cattle many times some 50 or 60 miles from the ranch to the Limestone summer pastures or to pastures east of Lusk at Kirtley and home again in the fall. After buying the homestead from his dad, he broke horses for other people for five dollars per head to make some extra money. He later dug out coyote dens for the bounty for some extra income. Always looking to buy another piece of ground, he started threshing alfalfa seed, which proved to be very worthwhile, from the fields he and his dad had planted and hayed with teams of horses. One of the most satisfying endeavors in his life was to see the irrigation water, which he worked very hard to obtain, spread out across the meadows.

Glenn very much enjoyed other people and devoted many evenings driving eighty miles to Lusk to school board meetings to maintain the country school for all the neighborhood children. He served as 4-H leader, teaching livestock judging and having fun together. He loved to call square dancing and taught all the kids how to enjoy participating in the local 4-H dances.

In 1960 they purchased and operated for eleven years the Edgemont Livestock Sales Company in Edgemont, S.D., returning to their ranch in 1971 after all their children had completed high school. The people they met and worked with in Edgemont became some of their most cherished friends to this day.

Glenn was a man of few words but he stood tall in the lives of his loved ones.

He is survived by his wife of 67 years, Phyllis, their son, Neil and Dianne Hanson of Colfax, Wash., their four daughters: Carolyn and Vern Johnson of rural Newcastle on the home place, Brenda and Al Bollwerk of Parker, Colo., Francie and Harv Goode of Newcastle and Roxie and Rusty Halsey of Casper. Also surviving Glenn are twelve grandchildren and thirteen great grandchildren.

Preceding him are his grandparents and parents, his one brother, his one sister, one grandson, Daniel Hanson, and one great grandson, Caleb Henrick Hanson.

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