Richard Frederick Hansen

Born July 16, 1932, Albert Lea, Minnesota.

Entered into eternal life January 11, 2025, Sun City, Arizona while surrounded by his loving family.

Dick lead a life filled with faith, love and family. While many of the stories he told never made his life appear to be a grand adventure, his life was truly filled with memorable moments, loving family and abundant adventures.

Dick spent his life exploring and experiencing many of life’s hidden secrets. Growing up in the small town of Wells, Minnesota. Dick was the son of parents who held an entrepreneurial spirit, operating a furniture store, a mortuary, a café, a candy making business and home builders. Dick was widely known by nearly everyone in and around the town of Wells. Dick’s parents set down roots in multiple locations in Wells during Dick’s earliest years. While his parents constructed the childhood family home, Dick, his sister and parents spent time living with his maternal grandmother, Dorothea Thom. During his school years at Wells Easton, Dick and family, lived in the family home/funeral home directly across the street from the school. Dick’s parents took many opportunities to socialize during the evenings each month. This left Dick and his sister with the responsibility to man the phone at the funeral home. Dick and his sister tried their hand at being entrepreneurs themselves, setting up a root beer stand in the city park where they sold root beer and hot beef sandwiches.

A class of 1950 graduate of Wells Easton high school. Dick spent his first few college years attending the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, before transferring and subsequently graduating with a degree in Business Administration, from Gustavus Adolphous College, St. Peter, MN in 1955. After his college graduation, Dick spent time building houses with his mother who had formed a company building homes (Rocket Homes) in Wells. Dick took those home building skills on the road to Glasgow, Montana building nearly 50 homes near the long since defunct Glasgow Air Force Base. Dick was an army reservist where his MOS was graves registration. His position in the reserves, assisted in his decision not to follow in the footsteps of his father and grandfather who were morticians in his home town. During his youth Dick worked countless odd jobs, including peanut vendor, a root beer stand operator, concrete manufacturing, delivering drain tiles to many of the farms surrounding Wells, working a brief stint at Musser’s chicken processing plant and farm census taker which took him to visit many of the farms throughout Faribault County.

Dick was a huge baseball fan. In the 1940’s and 50’s his favorite team was the New York Giants. He fondly and often told the story remembering the “Shot heard round the world” when his beloved Giants won the pennant on the final day over the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1951. When the Washington Senators moved to Bloomington, Minnesota in 1961, he was elated. From then on he was aboard the Twins bandwagon.

In the 1960’s Dick took his skill set to Minneapolis. In 1965, Dick began his career at the Assessors Office with the City of Minneapolis. At the beginning of his career in the assessors office, Dick spent mornings in the office and afternoons in the field.

Running a parallel timeline in 1965, he met Marie Owen. They were introduced by a mutual friend who taught with Marie in Fridley, MN. Dick and Marie began dating in October 1965 and married June 18, 1966. Dick and Marie began their lives together living in an apartment in northeast Minneapolis. In 1967, the city of Minneapolis repealed their residency requirement for employees, which allowed Dick and Marie to purchase their first house in Columbia Heights, MN. Additionally in 1967 they welcomed their first child, a daughter, Joan Marie. In 1969, Dick and Marie welcomed their second child, a son, Eric Richard. In 1971, Dick and family welcomed their third child, a daughter, Karen Elizabeth. Unknowingly Karen was not a healthy child. Born with a heart defect, Karen succumbed just 3 short months after her birth. Karen’s death was extremely painful for Dick. He rarely expressed his thoughts and feelings about Karen’s death with others outside of immediate family. Karen’s death played a pivotal role in his decision to forgo having any further children.

1973, the city assessors office joined the computer age. Dick signed up for the aptitude testing and was subsequently accepted into the computer programmer, program. Dick spent the remainder of his career writing computer programs for the assessors office. At the end of everyday, Dick would take the punchcards, which he and his associates produced during the day to the computer room in the basement of the government center building. The computer operators would run these programmed cards through the computer all through the night.

Circa 1974, Dick joined the advisory board of the City-County Credit Union. His role on the advisory board, was one which didn’t require too much of his time. However, one evening each month was dedicated to counting cash and auditing the tills of the bank tellers.

1976, the bicentennial year, was a big year for Dick and his family. Dick and Marie purchased a vacant lot in neighboring St. Anthony Village. Relying on the skill set which he acquired during his home building years. Dick took an existing floor plan which both he and Marie liked, made some modifications, and set about building the family home. Dick spent all of his weekends working to construct the family home. He completed most of the aspects required to build the home, including digging the foundation, laying the blocks for the basement, framing the entire house, plumbing, siding, roofing, etc.

In 1978, Dick took his family on their first out of state summer vacation. They didn’t venture far, just over to Wisconsin and down to Iowa. This began a string of years when the family piled into the family station wagon, and away they went. Trips to Florida, Toronto, Montreal, Quebec City, New England, Washington D.C. and the Black Hills were some of the most memorable vacations. In 1984, Dick and Marie took their first European adventure. Joined by family friends, the adventure took them on a whirlwind 3 week adventure through 21 countries in Western Europe. As the children grew older and more independent, the family vacations began to fade. Dick and Marie began focusing on vacations for themselves with a variety of interests involved in the planning process. Including family and friends on many of these trips brought an even greater enjoyment. Additional travel adventures included a genealogical trip to Norway and Denmark. To France for family engagements and subsequent trips after the birth of their first grandchild. Slovenia a country close to Marie’s heart. A couple of visits to Hawaii including an inter island cruise. An Alaskan vacation and inter coastal cruise terminating in Vancouver, B.C. Visits to 48 of the 50 states only missing visits to Rhode Island and Connecticut. Two Cruises out of New York one along the Atlantic coast, into the St. Lawrence seaway and Cruising New York to Los Angeles through the Panama Canal. A Mississippi River cruise on a paddle wheel steamship from St. Louis to St. Paul. Many of these trips were opportunities to satisfy their curiosities of a world greater than their day to day lives.

Dick was an active member in each of the churches he and his family attended. From his youth attending German and Norwegian Churches in Wells, to St. Matthew in Columbia Heights, Nativity in St. Anthony and Shepard of the Desert in Sun City. In the 1970’s and 80’s while attending St. Matthew, Dick helped to organize family nights, including setting up talent shows during the potluck suppers and serving on the board of elders. In the early 1990’s Dick and Marie moved to Nativity in St. Anthony. Where they continued to build their community in Christ, they attended early morning bible studies, and helped in the church in whatever manner they felt called to do.

Dick was an avid photographer, he enjoyed filming many family events in the early years with his 8mm movie camera. In 1979, Dick purchased his first VHS video camera. He bought a large shoulder mount Panasonic video camera and portable VHS recorder. His investment and interest in video taping lead to a small side business. KCID Video Productions was born and Dick was excited to record events spanning the gambit from graduations to weddings, retirement parties and family functions.

After retiring from the city of Minneapolis in January 1996. Dick and Marie began their time as part time residents of two different states. They maintained their summer home in St. Anthony and winter home in Sun City, Arizona. In the spring of 2013, Dick and Marie found a quaint place in Chatfield, MN. They made it their summer home until moving to Arizona full time in the fall of 2016.

Dick and Marie’s loving marriage lasted more than 58 years. Rarely were these two separated. On the odd occasion when they were separated, when reunited, they spent the following few days making up for missed hugs and “smooches”.

Dick is preceded in death by mother Ada Irene Hansen (née Thom), father Victor Emmanuel Hansen, daughter Karen Elizabeth, Brother-in-law Joseph Owen, Brother-in-law Sydney Saetre, along with a hoard of aunts, uncles, and cousins. Dick is survived by wife Marie (née Owen) Daughter Joan Lebigot (Olivier), son Eric, granddaughters Stacie and Claire Lebigot, Sister Yvonne Saetre(née Hansen), Brother-in-law Robert Owen (Gail), Nephew Richard Owen (Sheri), Nieces Becky Roeder (Rob), Barbie Boerger (Dean), Beth Peterson (Blake), Cousins John Bruder, Dorothy Brannon (née Bruder), Bonnie Beckmann (née White), John White, Janet Nelson (née White), Bill White (Arlene), Mary Loftness (née White) Morris Hansen, Walter Hansen, Clara Hansen, Fred Hansen and a host of other extended family and friends.

A celebration of Dick’s life is planned to coincide with the beginning of the Major League Baseball season.

For those wishing to pay their final respects to Dick, please stand during the 7th inning stretch and sing “Take Me out to the Ball Game” during the opening day game between the Minnesota Twins and St. Louis Cardinals on March 27, 2025.