Merrill Monroe Hatcher

Merrill Monroe Hatcher

Merrill Monroe Hatcher was born in a log cabin in Callaway County, Missouri Oct. 18, 1906, the first of 10 children of Sam L. Hatcher and Gillie Mae Divers Hatcher.

He graduated from Auxvasse High School in 1925, attended Northwestern Bible School in Minneapolis for one year, William Jewel College in Liberty, Mo. for three and a half years, and then graduated from the University of Missouri with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Education.

After 19 months in the U.S. Navy in WWII, he completed the requirements for a Master's Degree in secondary education at the University of Wyoming.

He taught in the Ketchum-Binford school in Albany County, in Lingle, Manville and Wheatland.

He moved to Alaska in 1954, living there for 13 years. He worked for the Department of Education, spending his last year there teaching in a native school out on the Aleutian Chain.

He and his wife, the former Lily Anderson, moved to Spokane, Wash., in 1967, where he taught at Northwest Christian School for two years.

In 1969, he was stricken with cancer and although cured, his health was frail. Because of his poor health, a few months after Lily's death in April of 1983, he moved to Wyoming to make his home with his daughter, Ruth Heumier and her husband. Early in 1984, it was discovered that he had a different kind of cancer. It was this cancer which took his life on May 12, 1985.

Merrill is survived by his daughter, Ruth Heumier of Lusk, a son, Dr. David Hatcher of Atascadero, Calif.; seven grandchildren; four great-grandchildren; one brother and three sisters.

Burial and memorial services were Wednesday in Fairmount Memorial Park in Spokane, Wash.

In lieu of flowers, the family would appreciate memorials to the American Cancer Society or the American Bible Society.

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