Hanson, a former superintendent of the North Pacific Conference, died Friday night at Covenant Shores Health Center. The memorial service will begin at 2 p.m. at Mercer Island Covenant Church.
ECC President Glenn Palmberg recalled that Hanson wanted to use small rural schoolhouses in Minnesota to hold church services when no other buildings were available – he was known for his creativity and ingenuity. Since the public schools would not provide him with a key, he learned to be a locksmith so that he could open the doors to the buildings on a given Sunday morning.
The schools knew of the activity, Palmberg said, smiling. “They just couldn’t give him the key.”
His legacy continues throughout the Covenant, and perhaps no place more so than in Alaska. In 1937, while a missionary to Alaska, he invented the forerunner to the modern snowmobile out of necessity to share the gospel.
“We arrived in Arctic Alaska (1935 – 1941) and we were responsible for five villages with no transportation for seven months of the year,” Hanson said during an interview in 2001. “Our very small allowance for travel expense was soon used up because villages were 40 to 50 miles apart with no roads in between. It was difficult and the airplanes were just coming into service. The first year we were there, it took a letter over a month to reach us from Chicago.
“I knew I had to solve this problem,” Hanson continued, “so I went to the Lord and prayed that we would have some way to get around during those seven months of winter. I saw bush pilots taxiing to the big store and maneuver with no difficulty at all. Well, the thought then came to me that if I could get a small airplane in and get three skis – two in the rear and one in the front – and get a light covering to protect us from the cold, I’d have something to solve my problem.”
Hanson went through several prototypes before settling on a design that included a modified airplane engine in the back. He initially called the invention an “airsled.” The snowmobile enabled travel between Eskimo villages to take only a fraction of the time previously needed when dogsleds were used. To read a previously published article about the airsled, please see Ralph Hanson.
Hanson was executive director of Covenant World Mission from 1945 to 1963 and used the position to lead the effort for construction of a 5,000-watt radio station in Nome. KICY went on the air on Easter Sunday in 1960. Its ministry continues today.
He received Christ as his savior at age 13, but didn’t commit his life for another two years, Hanson said. “I was afraid that the Lord would call me to ministry,” he explained. “Having other plans, I struggled and resisted his Lordship until finally surrendering completely to his will at age 15. Best decision I ever made!”
Hanson would later say, “Never in my life have I asked for a job. My advice is simple: Go where God leads.”
Hanson was raised on a 160-acre farm near International Falls, Minnesota, and began ministry at the age of 16 when the pastor of a new Covenant church asked him to lead the congregation’s youth group.
He was born November 14, 1910, in Manitou, Minnesota. He graduated from North Park College and North Park Theological Seminary and was ordained in 1935.
Hanson served the Covenant in numerous capacities. He was a home missionary in the Northwest Conference from 1930 to 1933. He served as student pastor of Portage Park Covenant Church in Chicago, Illinois, from 1933-1935; he was interim pastor of Berkeley Covenant Church from 1943 to 1944; and he served First Covenant Church in San Diego, California from 1963 to 1967. He was the superintendent of the North Pacific Conference from 1967 to 1973.
He spearheaded the Giving is Growing fundraising effort in the 1970s, which raised $8 million, and he helped lead numerous other development initiatives. He also served on the Survey Commission from 1953 to 1957.
A pilot, his work outside the Covenant included serving as president of World Missionary Aviation Fellowship from 1946 to 1947 and serving on the organization’s board of directors from 1948 to 1960.
Although Hanson suffered from Alzheimers, he still demonstrated a deep faith. “That part of who he was never surrendered to that dreaded disease,” said Mercer Island Pastor Greg Asimakoupoulos. “He was always celebrating God’s faithfulness and praising the Lord in his deep booming voice.”
Hanson married his first wife, Alyce, in 1935. She preceded him in death in 1984. He married Lillian Friesen in 1986. In addition to Lillian, survivors include sons Paul Hanson, of Sequim, Washington, and David Hanson, of South Pasadena, California.
