Robert Paul Hanson was born May 14, 1918 in Sarona, Wisconsin to Fred Elmer Hanson and Marion Lulu (Bergquist) Hanson.

Bob’s mother Marion, like the above photo of Bob, because she said, Bobby is in his flowers, like the flower garden he made for me on the farm. It was like the one he worked on at Dr. Bobs in Ashland. It had a small lily pond, an arbor, and a rose bed. Minnie had her cabin built next to it.

Fred Hanson owned and kept a General Store in Sarona Wisconsin, until Bob was about two, then the family moved to a farm 2 ½ miles outside of Ashland Wisconsin. The farm was next to the Bad River Indian Reservation. Minnie Bell his mother wanted to know why he had bought a farm near Ashland.

She said, It was way up north and the farmland isn't good up there.

Fred said, because there is a collage that his kids can attend when they get older and there is a market for poultry and eggs with the ore boats coming to docks and loading Iron ore.

The House, Our home was typical for a large farm house of the region; two stories, with a front porch that stretched across its entire length. lt had six bedrooms (four up, two down), a large living room, dining room, and kitchen. Off from the kitchen there was a multi-purpose space that we just called "the backroom"; consisting of a pantry, a laundry area, and a hallway with a staircase that led down to the cellar.

Elmer Hanson

The Farm, Our farm land was suppose to be about 80 acres, however, our father. always maintained that it was only 69 acres, having had 1.1 of those acres appropriated for road development on three of our sides. Of the remaining 69 acres, about 20 acres were a partially wooded area used for pasturing, and for providing us with a source of fuel for our wood stoves.

Elmer Hanson

The incubator that hached the chickens, was in the basement. It ran on coal brought to Ashland by the Ore Boats. When an order came in for chickens, everybody in the family worked getting the birds ready for Order. Fred drove them down to the docks with his model T. The telephone company in Ashland was a cooperative where the member installed the phone lines. The phone line ran out as far the Hanson house. This made it the closest phone to the Bad River Indian Reservation off old highway 2 and became the Reservation’s hotline to Ashland. The phone was how the Ore boats call in there orders for milk, butter, eggs, and chickens.

For first and second grade Bob stayed in town, with his grandparents, so he could get a good start with his schooling. Education was a priority for the Hanson Family. Do to harsh winter of Northern Wisconsin, even tho the farm was only 2 ½ miles from town the family could be snow bound for weeks at a time and bob would miss school. On the farm, the family raised eggs and poultry for the Ore boats. There were no Ore boats in the winter because lake Superior froze over. This was a time of kerosen lamps before electicity. Bob's grandparents Minnie and Andrew had retired, from farming near Shell Lakes Wisconsin, to Asland.

Our entire duration on the farm was without electricity. We studied throughout high school and college by the light of a fuel lamp. We had one gas mantel house lamp that hugged the wall in the dining room, and another gas lantern to provide light for doing chores in the barn-, that is if the wind didn't blow it out before we got it there. We had kerosene lamps which we'd move from room to room as needed, and a spare for back-up when a mantel would break on one of the gas lamps. At Christmas time small candles were placed on the Christmas tree, which were lit and watched with great care, so as not to start a fire. people who've never lived without electricity might think it must have been quaint to run a farm without benefit of power tools, electric pumps or lights, but let me assure them, on long cold dark winter days they would find it held very little charm, indeed.

Elmer Hanson

When living in town with his grandparents, Bob met Dr. Bob a Northland College Professor, in Botany - who found him to be a clever boy and hired him to weed his garden. Dr. Bob had a botanical garden where the plants had latin names. Bob was quick to learn the speimens from the weeds and there latin names. Dr. Bob took a liking to Bob and taught him how to press plants and collect speimens. Back home on the farm is were bob learn the common names for the plants.

The University of Wisconsin Extension was trying to promote Bicolor (Sorghum) the African variety that is drought-resistant in the late 1920s. During the drought of the 1930's Bobby's (Broom Corn) saved the family farm, according to Minnie. This photo had writing on its back...

Bobby had got his seed from Dr. Bob to take home and plant on the farm. This was to grow food for the chickens, so they didn’t have to buy expensive feed that came on the train from southern Wisconsin. He paid for the seed with money he got from weeding Dr. Bob’s botanical garden. This photo above is of Bobby standing in his (Broom Corn) project sorghum bicolor with his proud parents.

The below photo is four generations, Fred Elmer Hanson on the left, next to him his mother Minnie Bell (Stover) Hanson, then Bob 12 and his great grandmother Eliza Jane (Cort) Stover.

Coming to America - Related by Minnie Bell (Stover) HansonThere were seven of them who left England in 1848 to come to America, Grandfather John Cort, Grandmother Mary Cort and five children, Thomas, Mary, Anna, John and Eliza, my mother.

Coming to America - Related by Eliza Jane (Cort) Stover Father had been a gardener in Great Bowden so we bought a farm a mile and a half from Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. We had apples, pears, currents, strawberries, and garden stuffs of all kinds - things grew so well. As a child the valley seemed to me to be a bit of heaven.

Letter from Michael Roper 1936 Great Bowden is now a village of about 800 people who for the most part work in nearby Market Harborough. The village is in the fox hunting district and is quite pretty, having several greens in the center and many trees along its streets. The church of Great Bowden is 800 years old and is still used every Sunday.

John was the families light harness horse. He pulled the carriage, the sleigh, and other light farm equipment like wagons and racks. The carriage was the backup for when the model T didn’t start and the sleigh was for getting to town when the roads were not ploughed.

The pond raised the water table and the creek began running all year. Now there was water for the livestock into the fall until the pond froze over in the winter.

Our water supply came from a 240 foot well, powered by a balky 3.14 horsepower gas engine, known as a (one-lunger). lt had only one piston, which didn't fire on every revolution, causing the peculiar sound which gave it its name.

Elmer Hanson

One of Bob’s first chores was keeping a supply of coal and water handy for the incubator and checking on the temperature for his Father. This was along with fetching the cows in the morning. Fred had try to incubate goose egg with no success. Bob observed the goose would leave the nest, leaving the eggs to cool, eat, and go for a swim and then come back wet and hop on the nest. He decided, he would do an experiment, he would take the goose eggs out of the incubator for as long as the goose left the nest and then put them back in the incubator with a wet towel over them. His pet goose ½ and ½ was his first success at doing this. The goose was called ½ and ½ because he preferred people and didn’t hang out with the other geese. Below is a photo   of Bob on a raft in his pond with his pet goose ½ and ½ . Bob conclude from his experiment, that it was essential in the last 10 days of incubation the goose eggs need to be cooled for a brief period of time and then moistened with water.

Dr. Bob was intrested in collecting Botanical Speimens on the Bad River Indian Reservation, in the Kakagon Slough and on the Apostle Island to complet his Chegumegon Bay Regional Northland College Herbarium. Mary Nye a Native American nieghbor and an active member of the Ashland Catlolic Church, took an intrested in Bob; no doubt, Dr. Bob had something to do with this. Mary brought down from her attic, the Chippewa Nation's beaded medicine bag for Bob. She took out its content, the plants, and expained each of the medical uses. Bob wrote down each of the plants latin name and medical uses and took the list back to Dr. Bob.

Mary had Fred her son look out for Bob and find him friend on the reservation to help him collecting plants. Bob's Odana Friends became like his Band of Brothers rich in oral history, wildeness servival skills, and the athletical ability to track and run down a deer. Bob's Odana friend who called him  "light in the forrest"  in Chippewa - his Indian name. This group set out to explore and discover the wonders of the Apostle Islands in the sercrets they held. Bob made a promise with his Odana Friends thet he would do everything he could to to save the Apostle Island in there wonder, beauty, and natural state. This is the foundation of Bob's of One Medicine for both animal and man in the Circadian Cyle, of a day in the life of the Earth, Evolving Envirmental Science.

There were others who influenced Bob during these years. He became acquainted with Guy Burnham, harbour master and local historian, who had a great influence on his life. Guy liked a young curious mind and in Bob he found someone he could challenge to explore and question the world around him.

Also, Bob's Uncle Harlan Bergquist stimulated his interest in rock collecting and geology. Harland was ahead of his time, he believed in continental creep or the continents move over time on a liquid mantle of molten rock, which came to be acceped as continental drift. Thus Alaska could have been near the equator hundreds of millions years ago and there could be oil in Alaska. He traveled to Alaska with his sister Gladys Bergquist in the 1943 on the Alcan Highway in a model A. Gladys was a school teacher with the summer off. She went for the adventure and to look after her little brother. They flew by bush pilot to the north slope where he did a survey for the United States Government.

I don't have any hard evidency that Harlan was to to the North slope before this, because it would have been a clasified Goverment survey. I have heard stories of Harland have been on the North slope in the late 1920s before the stock market crash.

Allan Hanson

While attending high school, Bob helped his brother Lyle found the Explorers club that had Morgan Sherlock, the history teacher as counselor. One of their accomplishments was to locate and chart the portage route from Lake Superior to the Mississippi River. Bob's Odana friend played big role in maping this anicent portage route.

Fred Nye was found out on the Lake Superior ice with sled tracks leading up to his body where he had been dumped. Fred Hanson, Bob's father, had helped his neighbor Nick Nye search for his son when he had gone missing. It was speculated this was the work of the Weathermen. Fred had been liquored up in a local Ashland establishment owned by reliative of the local sheiff, put into a unheated back room where he froze to death, and then stored to be hauled out on the spring ice to be never found. The only thing Fred did wrong was to look more Native American than all of his siblings. The sheiff's relitives and the Nye's most likely attended Mass together in the same Catlolic Church in Ashland.

It was in 1941, while on a fishing trip at the mouth of The Bad River on Lake Superior that Fred Hanson drowned. lt was a hot day in Augustand he had decided to go for a dip to cool off. He was considered to been excellent swimmer. Fred had a massive heart attack while swimming, perhaps triggered from Lake Superior cold water and shock to the system. Wilho Bloomquist was along on the fishing trip and was the one who was to eventuallv recover his body. Bob was in Washington D.C. at the time working for the Census Bureau at the time.

While at Ashland and living on the farm, Bob found the outdoors to be his laboratory. Everything interested him - butterflies, insects, rocks and even the self-sustaining ecosystem in the small creek that ran though our front yard. Chequamegon Bay area and especially Bad River, Kakagon Slough, and Long Island were favorite exploration haunts for him. Bob graduated summa cum laude from Ashland High Schoolin June 1936. He continued his education at Northland College at Ashland graduating summa cum laude in June 1940. Following graduation he took a job with the Census Bureau in Washington D.C. With the advent of World War II, he enlisted in the Army Medical Corp and seved at The Army Medical Center in Washington D.C. and at Grosse Isle in the St. lawrence Seaway for the Allied Command. Upon being discharged from the army Bob was accepted for post graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin at Madison where he resided until his death in 1987. Shortly after moving to Madison Bob married Martha Goodlet, who he had met while stationed at the Army Medical Center. They had two children, a son Allan and a daughter Diane.

Lyle Hanson

My brother, Bob, was inherently a scientist from the very beginning, empirically investigating everything from bugs to flowers as a child. When he was in high school he transformed Mother's flower beds into an elaborate arboretum; building a rock garden, an ornamental fish pond, and replanting wild flowers. We would receive many visitors from town, who would come out just to take a walk along its many paths, and enjoy the "English Country Garden" effect he had so cares-takingly created. The last year Bob lived at home he wrote a column for the local newspaper, entitled: "ln Bloom this Weekend". lt was a timely piece that appeared each Friday, identifying and describing which wild flowers would be in bloom on the coming weekend. lt was a popular feature and many people expressed to us their disappointment when Bob left for a job in Washington, D.C. After he had left the farm, and we were cleaning out his upstairs bedroom, we discovered a three-foot stack of newspapers with wildflowers neatly pressed between each sheet.

Elmer Hanson

As a Professor at the Universty of Wisconsin, Bob was call to Washington, when (John F Kennedy was President) to come up with a solution for the Beef Import Export crisis with Argentina. Bob got to brief the Kennedy’s Cabinet. He told them all he need to solve the problem was: fifty one thousand dollars, produced an itemized budget; one good man, produced a list of qualification; and both sides would agree to these protocols, and produced that list. The Cabinet was ready to throw millions at the problem. Kennedy was so impressed he took Bob aside to talk to him. Bob told him; he grew up on a farm near Ashland Wisconsin next to an Indian Reservation, and as a boy he explored the Apostle Island with his native American Friends, and if an place on earth need to preserved the The Apostle Island did. Kennedy flew out there to see them for himself and he was able to keep his promise to his Odana friends.