Dr. Herbert Hannan Jr.

Daddy, aka Ben, Dr. Hannan, Jr., Herbie, Herb, died in his 90th year of life on Oct. 8, 2018 in San Marcos, Texas. He was born in Liberty, Maine to Herbert and Abbie Hannan. It has taken me weeks to write this because there are not adequate words to describe my father. I have also fretted with how to use proper words and fashion it after other obituaries, but I lack confidence in that manner so can only write from the heart. 

Daddy was born in Liberty, Maine (population 965 at this writing). He entertained all of us with his stories of growing up in Maine. A favorite was getting up early and checking his traps in the Maine woods on the way to school. He would arrive at school and hand his gun over to the principal who stored it in his office until school was over. 

Daddy had three siblings who passed before him, they were half siblings whose father had abandoned them and my grandmother. Daddy’s father, Herb Sr. married her and together that had him. Daddy watched how his father loved his siblings as if they were his own and modeled the same behavior to all who came across him. 

Daddy went into the Air Force and was stationed at Gary Air Force Base in San Marcos, Texas. He was very athletic and ran the sports program and the gymnasium at the base. He was an accomplished athlete and played, handball, ping pong, basketball, baseball, swimming, and was even a heavyweight Golden Gloves boxing champion. 

While stationed at Gary he ran the projector at a movie theatre where he fell in love with a pretty little Texas gal who was attending Southwest Texas Teacher’s College. It was around this time he read an article in the newspaper saying there was a shortage of biologists and he decided to use his GI bill to go to college.

One thing led to another and before you know it Daddy had four degrees. One of those degrees was from the prestigious Brown University, where he loves to tell the story about how when he got there he asked about the football team and was met with silence. 

This was the start of a long love affair with education and all the beautiful things that entails, mainly working with young people. Daddy was a high school teacher but went on to become a college professor at the university now named Texas State University. He loved his students and several saw him the Friday before he passed at a reunion at the university. I don’t think I ever had a conversation with Daddy that he didn’t mention his teaching days teaching.

Daddy left Texas in 1998 and became a resident once again in his beloved Maine. My time there with him this last summer was beautiful. On my last day there he took me to the cemetery where he wanted to be buried. It is just like him to make sure nothing was left undone, and just to illustrate that I will tell you how he ended his last day. 

Daddy had dinner with us and he sat on the end of the table so he could be with his grandchildren. He lectured the kids on using their money wisely, school and such. Then he told the kids that he wanted to make it to 90, he was 6 months away, but he told them that if he didn’t he had lived a good life. Then he exclaimed with a big grin on his face that he wanted to die of a heart attack. He repeated it and said that would be the way he wanted to go and he laughed. 

The next morning my father collapsed because his heart quit beating. He was brought back and put on machines, something that my father was against. When the decision was made to honor my father’s wishes, I took one hand and his granddaughter Chloe took the other. His great grandchild Avigail began to sing the Star Spangled Banner out of the blue. Then Chloe sang him a lullaby that has special meaning to our family. As she sang, his breathing slowed and the greatest man that I have ever known this side of heaven left this earth and joined so many of his loved ones that went before him. 

I would name all the survivors, but I just can’t. My Daddy was raised seeing his father and mother love people that weren’t just blood and he in turn lived that way too. My Daddy did love his family but he loved many of the faculty and students he worked with as well. 

I will end with a quote. Daddy loved poetry and the poet who was discovered not far from his hometown, Edna St. Vincent Millay, wrote this in a letter to a loved one. 

“Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night. I miss you like hell.”

I would like to thank the faculty and former students who have reached out to me. It has meant the world. Daddy loved you all.