Hannah Mae (Cromer) Haller

She was preceded in death by her husband (Richard W. Haller), her parents (John and Grace Landrey Cromer), one brother (Eugene Cromer), and two sisters (Mary Jane Degenhardt and Harriet Spangler). Hannah is survived by a daughter and son-in-law (Carmita and Glen Wright), a granddaughter (Calen Wright), her beloved Pomeranian (Honeybun), and her nieces, nephews, and countless friends.

Hannah, the youngest of four children, was born in Daleville, Indiana in an upstairs bedroom of the “Cromer Home” with just a nurse to assist her mother. In 1928, she and her family moved into another family farmhouse built in the late 1880s by her maternal grandfather, Richard Landrey. This stately Victorian brick farmhouse with a wrap-around veranda and beautiful gingerbread trim was her home for 20 years.

After graduating from Daleville High School in 1942, she attended Wittenberg Lutheran College in Springfield, Ohio for a year to major in Music, as her family was a musical bunch. Because finances were tight, she was unable to continue her education. However, she pursued her love of music by giving piano lessons to neighborhood children in Kalamazoo, Michigan and by playing the organ for St. Timothy’s Lutheran Church in Hendersonville, Tennessee for about 15 years.

Hannah married her high school sweetheart, Richard Haller, at Camp Plauche Army base in New Orleans in 1945, and this was the beginning of their marriage and love story that lasted for over 72 years. They enjoyed spending time together with their loved ones at their lake cottages on Dewart Lake in Indiana and at Gun Lake in Michigan, boating, fishing, skiing, along with many spirited card games, especially Euchre. In their retirement years, they took to the road traveling the highways and byways of the United States with their family and friends.

Hannah’s passions were her family and dear friends, gardening, baking, and volunteering for Historic Rugby. She was also known as an avid reader, aerobics aficionado of S.A.I.L., and a seamstress. She began sewing at age 10 and, by the time she was a senior in high school, she was an accomplished seamstress. The dress she created as a senior for her 4-H Club was entered into the Indiana State Fair, and it garnered her a blue ribbon. She perfected her craft and sewed hundreds of prom and wedding dresses along with costumes for country music personalities in Nashville, such as Mae Boren Axton.

She was baptized into the Christian faith on Easter Sunday, April 12, 1925, at Crossroads Lutheran Church in Middletown, Indiana, the rural family church that was founded by her paternal great-grandfather, Reverend Samuel Sayford, in 1848. Hannah was proud that she was a life-long Lutheran and particularly as a member of Grace Lutheran Church of Knoxville. She thoroughly enjoyed her bi-weekly Bible study with her sisters in Christ, the “God is Faithful Care Group.”

Hannah’s Celebration of Life service will be held at Grace Lutheran Church, 9076 Middlebrook Pike, Knoxville, Tennessee 37923 on Saturday, November 22, 2025. Visitation will begin at 10:00 am, with the Celebration of Life service at 11:00 am, followed by a luncheon. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in Hannah’s memory to the following: Grace Lutheran Church at 9076 Middlebrook Pike Knoxville, TN 37923; Historic Rugby, Inc. at 1331 Rugby Parkway, Rugby, TN 37733; or Crossroads Lutheran Church Historical Preservation Society at c/o Mary Le Glore, Treasurer, 3551 South Whitney Road, Selma, IN 47383.