Peter Day Hanson, son of the Rev. Richard Ewing Hanson and Margery (Day) Hanson, and grandson of the late Perry Oliver Hanson and Ruth Ewing Hanson, Iola, died after a lengthy illness on March 8, 2015 in Vermont.
He was born on March 29, 1929 in New York City.
He entered Harvard College in the fall of 1946. He was stricken with polio and spent a year and a half at the Warm Springs Foundation in Warm Springs, Ga. Returning to Harvard and graduating in 1951, he attended Union Theological Seminary in New York. After ordination as a Methodist minister, he served three parishes in Vermont.
On Oct. 2, 1954 he married Cynthia Barstow. They had four children.
After 11 years as a minister, he decided to become a social studies teacher and returned to Harvard for a master’s degree. He then moved his family to Connecticut and taught at the Coleytown and Staples schools in Westport for the rest of his professional career.
The Rev. Hanson was an active member of Grace Congregational United Church of Christ.
Energetic and gregarious, Peter was known for his prodigious memory and encyclopedic knowledge of the Bible, hymnody, classical music, many historical periods and current events. He was a loving husband, father and older brother.
Survivors include his wife; children, Catherine Hanson, Christopher Hanson, Cynthia Hanson and Charles Hanson, and wife, Kathryn; three siblings and their spouses, Nancy Hanson Stevenson and husband, Ross, Elizabeth Hanson Mellen and husband, Allen, and Richard E. Hanson, Jr. and wife, Cheryl; and several nieces and nephews.
Peter Hanson
