The Fourth of July was my father’s favorite day of the year. It was his birthday. He was a patriot in so many ways and genuinely loved the small-town parades. Every firecracker set off at our cabin near  Fort Peck Lake, twenty miles from our home in Glasgow, MT, was to celebrate Dad. So he thought.

While the adults would celebrate by having cocktails inside, the Hanson kids (David, Ann, and Gretchen) and their friends would gleefully and dangerously set off cherry bombs carefully placed under tin cans, watch the explosion, and try to catch the flying objects. All the ants in their delicately  constructed hills feared July 4. Their homes were exploded by said cherry bombs. Ah, the memories. Good ones until the 4th when my Dad got his left hand too close to a pan of hot oil (cooking shrimp as I remember) and was severely burned which resulted in a quick end to our celebration and a trip to the hospital. His scar remained visible the rest of his life.

Leslie Lew Wallace Hanson was born in Osakis, MN, on July 4, 1905. Because of his Mother Olga’s health, Louis (Grandpa Louie to me) moved the family (my two aunts, Francys (12) and Mercedes (2) and my dad (10), to Vandalia, MT, to live on the 160 acres of land granted to them by the 1862 Homestead Act and try to ‘proof’ his land.

One of my father’s aunts (Emma) moved into the small farm to help raise the children. She eventually married a ‘Scotsman,’ Harry Wright who knew farming and saved the homestead from foreclosure. As a small child, along with my parents and brother, I spent time on the homestead. Uncle Harry let me drive his old tractor and play in the cattle trough. Aunt Emma was a stern Dane and didn’t smile. I do remember her caution me about the viciousness of her turkeys. She was correct.  

My Dad helped his father operate an elevator and general store in Vandalia and his education started in a small country school. He was sent to live with his paternal grandparents in Minnesota and eventually came back to Montana and graduated from Glasgow High School in 1923 and continued to live in Glasgow the rest of his life except for a period of time when he was with the Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC) near the eastern entrance of Glacier National Park in Babb, MT.

My mother, Lillian Louise Metcalfe, moved to Glasgow to continue her teaching career in the late 1920s and met my father who was by a budding businessman in Glasgow, and after a long courtship, married in 1937. My brother was born in 1939, I followed in 1941, and our sister arrived in 1949. Over the years, my father became successful as a partner in Hanson-Mersen Motors auto dealership.

Many people remember Leslie Hanson as a person who treasured honesty, kindness, and fairness. He religiously visited the hospital and nursing home every Sunday afternoon, tucking silver dollars into the hands of lonesome, sick, and destitute people. He would take flowers to many widows on Mother’s Day, place flowers on forgotten graves on Memorial Day. Each Christmas the office workers at City Hall, the Courthouse, telephone office, weather bureau, and the bank would receive boxes of candy from Les. And he often would tell the ‘bosses’ that their workers were not appreciated enough and without them, there could be no business.

The shadow side of my father was seen and felt when he was at home. Alone with this family, without public scrutiny, on a regular basis I suffered. I don’t specifically remember details until I became a teenager. My mother suffered from a husband who was emotionally unavailable and very controlling. Many times, she would call me into their bedroom and ask me to lie down with her as she was uncontrollably crying. Emotional pain overwhelmed her. I held my mother as my thirteen year-old self attempted to help and soothe her. I remember begging her to divorce my father. Her responses confused me. “What would everyone think?” Your dad is a good man.” “He supports us well.”  Repeat, I was thirteen, just beginning to understanding my growing-up self.

As my teenage years continued, my father’s behavior behind closed doors didn’t change. And, I became more outspoken and resentful. His appreciation of my achievements (scholastically and musically) was felt. I was torn. My defiance of rules resulted in physical violence towards me. I would be marched down to the basement and ‘spanked.’ This lasted until I was sixteen. And after my abuse, I was told that he did it because he loved me. My mother did nothing to protect me. I remember my brother received wrath, too, but was never physically attacked. My ‘little sister’ was not a victim.

As the decades passed, my father did change. The death of my mother at age fifty-six was devastating for everyone including me. He remarried a wonderful woman and over the last two decades of his life he softened in his own way. As he was dying I remember him saying he was sorry and wished he’d been a better dad. Tears ran down both our faces. All I could say was, “I love you.”

Throughout my adult life, I’ve had opportunities to speak, teach, facilitate, and present to thousands of people. Most of them don’t know me. I’ve chosen to introduce myself by speaking of the place I was born and the values that have grounded me over the decades. Many I learned from my father: care of the other, honesty, and generosity. I will share a story or two of my father’s life.

As an eighty-three year old great-grandmother, which side of my father do I most often talk and write about? Although the dark side resides within me, I chose to celebrate the good. We are all products of our upbringing, and everyone experiences trauma in their lives. What music is the loudest?