Cheryl’s father, Duke, died Monday morning, Feb. 22nd. Here are the obituary and eulogy which she wrote for him.
DUKE ELLSWORTH HANNA, III
Dr. Duke Ellsworth Hanna III, neurological surgeon, was born to Duke and Alice Morehouse Hanna, in Indianapolis, Indiana on July 24, 1923. He passed away on Monday, February 22, 2010 in the comfort of his home, surrounded by family and dedicated caregivers.
Dr. Hanna devoted his professional life to medicine. In March 1945, he married his favorite nurse, Eleanor Jane Myron Hanna and then graduated with his medical degree from Indiana University in 1946. He served as a Lieutenant (JG) of the US Navy and was stationed in Long Beach, CA and later in Hawthorne, NV. He completed the Neurosurgical Residency at the University of Chicago (1951-1954). He began to practice neurosurgery in Indiana, but remarked that he would rather be “a little fish in a big sea than a big fish in a little sea”, so in 1956, the young family moved to the Southland.
Dr. Hanna spent his most active years practicing neurosurgery at Santa Monica Hospital, St. John’s Hospital, Centinela Hospital, and UCLA Medical Center. During those years, he served as Chief of Neurological Surgery at St. John’s Hospital and was an Assistant Clinical Professor of Neurological Surgery at UCLA. He co-authored a medical textbook, Illustrative Cranial Neuroradiology (1967), working diligently to render radiographic studies sufficiently well to translate to the printed page. This was a difficult, laborious feat in the age of traditional darkroom technology.
Duke was a focused, determined, and intelligent man, applying those qualities to his hobbies: championship bird dogs, photography, and aviation. Jane’s companionship, warmth, and extroversion was essential to bring out Duke’s lighter and more playful side. One thing Duke didn’t do well was to tell jokes: he would sometimes come to the dinner table, start in on a story, then laugh so hard he couldn’t get to the punch line. Watching him laugh made us laugh especially in contrast to his usual serious and quiet mien. After the children were grown, he and Jane traveled frequently to both remote and cosmopolitan places around the world and enjoyed a wide variety of friends.
Duke is predeceased by his wife, Jane, and his two younger brothers, Robert Hanna (Fortuna CA) and Lyle A. Hanna (Tempe, AZ). Duke is survived by children: Anita Fullbright (Carl) of Fortuna, CA, Cheryl Hanna-Truscott (Al) of Gig Harbor, WA, and Robert Hanna of Fortuna, CA; grandchildren and great-grandchildren. He leaves sisters-in-law, Glenora Hanna (Tempe, AZ), Ann Hanna (Chatsworth, CA) and Nancy Wolters (Los Angeles, CA and Seymour, IN) and nieces and nephews.
A memorial service will be held on Saturday, February 27, 2010, at the Gates, Kingsley, and Gates Mortuary, 1925 Arizona Ave., Santa Monica. Viewing and reception will be from 1:00-3:30 pm with a service starting at 3:30 pm. Final interment will be at the Sunrise Cemetery in Fortuna, CA, on Saturday, March 13. In lieu of flowers, contributions will be gratefully accepted in Memory of Duke Hanna by HCAR-Sequoia Center/Art Studio, 1707 E. Street, Suite 2, Eureka, CA 95501 (707) 443-7077. HCAR is a non-profit organization enriching the lives of the developmentally disabled and has directly benefitted their son, Robert.
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Eulogy of Our Father
I volunteered to share the offspring point of view since in dividing the load, Anita showed a much greater facility for organizing almost everything to do with the aftermath of dying and funeral arrangements. Our skills appear to be quite complementary: While Anita needed to lose herself ticking off her check lists, making dozens of phone calls, and formatting announcements and programs, I allowed myself the grace of experiencing the emotional complexity and dove deep into memories collected over nearly 61 years. In sharing my personal memories and thoughts about Duke Ellsworth Hanna III, I hope some of mine will resonate with some of your own.
We have all heard the cliché, “It’s not exactly brain surgery or rocket science.” Whenever I hear that, I admit to having a certain quiet pride that my dad actually was a brain surgeon. There is a great mystique surrounding a person who would be called into that profession and today we are here to share memories, impressions, and recollections about the brain surgeon that ALL of us in this room knew something about.
One of my first memories of my dad happened when I was probably five years old and he was a neurosurgical resident at the University of Chicago. One time, he took me to the science lab where I remember the caged monkeys with mercurochrome stains on shaved fur. We passed by a sink and my father picked up a gelatinous mass in his bare hands. “This,” he said with a twinkle in his eye, “is a brain tumor.” I remember having a mixed feeling of fascination, disgust, and awe. Mostly fascination. He made me feel important when he shared that with me.
I remember that Duke was really, really good at making fudge and peanut butter sandwiches, hold the jelly. He was hapless in the kitchen other than doing those two things.
I remember frequently seeing my dad with a camera dangling from his neck while our mom was nearby with a beautiful and ready smile.
I remember his arduous call schedule, switching off with Eric Yuhl, his partner, and these were the days before pagers and cell phones. When we went to a very occasional restaurant or movie, he had to notify the manager where he would be sitting in case a telephone exchange operator had to notify him of an emergency. In those earlier days, the invention of beepers was a curse and a blessing… mostly a blessing.
I remember a road trip my dad and I took together when I was around 13. We headed off to Saskatchewan, Canada where his bird dogs were training during the summer. We left in the family station wagon that he had customized with a souped-up engine and a race-car type of gear shift. This car was a concession to my mom and our family needs because he would rather have kept his little sport car. He drove nonstop the entire distance from Los Angeles to the Canadian border, just finally stopping the next night because the area was very rural and finding our destination in the dark would have been very difficult.
I remember coming home from a date and hearing the phone ring. I thought it might be my boyfriend needing to tell me something so I picked up the phone receiver. It was an operator telling my dad there was an emergency at the hospital. She went on to state that the “fluid leaking out of the accident victims ears was the consistency of toothpaste.” Imagine getting a call like that in the middle of the night.
I remember the worry on his face when he would tell me to stay away from “murder cycles” and “body surfing.” He knew all too well the toll those sports took on young, local residents.
I remember watching a film he made about a type of neurosurgical procedure. The film was rather gruesome and bloody, but he made it more fun when he replayed the film in reverse. Watching it that way, I got to see the bloody mess all nicely patched up in the end when the scalpel went in reverse neatly zipped up the dry and intact skin.
Our dad was a deeply focused, serious, and introverted man. One night, he seemed particularly reflective and inward. As I sat watching him with his books out on the dining table, he looked at me and talked about the operation he had to do the next day. I felt so flattered because he wasn’t a talkative person and didn’t often share his thoughts. He was worried about the surgery and told me he had to do a really good job because his patient was a young woman and would leave her children motherless if he failed.
When I was thinking about goals I set for my own life, I asked him how he ever got through all the learning and studying and hours of work and sleep-deprivation to finally end up being a brain surgeon. He told me very simply, “I just did it one day at a time.”
He loved his profession. And he pursued his hobbies with almost the same degree of focus and drive. He was always impatient and baffled by people who claimed to want to do something or achieve a goal but then made excuses about why they couldn’t follow through. He just didn’t get it. His philosophy about that was similar to the Nike slogan, “Just do it!”
It’s hard to know whether the life and death profession he practiced chose him or he chose it. His personality and his profession combined to thwart emotional expression to a degree that played havoc with his personal relationships. Handling emotions was harder for him than for most people. I believe that as a result, this led to the development of chronic health problems making his last two decades progressively difficult. Physicians, especially of his era, often have a hard time healing themselves.
We all depended on several wonderful, responsible caregivers at the end of Duke’s life. A few weeks ago when I phoned, I told him I knew he had been having a hard time lately and I told him I was planning a trip to LA at the end of March. I asked if he wanted me to come sooner. In a barely audible voice, he said, “Yes.” I repeated my question because he had never asked me to come. Again, he said, “Yes.”
Two weeks ago, Duke accepted hospice care. The experience of witnessing his suffering was difficult for all of us: his children, Nancy, and his competent caregivers. He was conscious for several visitors and then slowly, his spirit seemed to ebb away. When he took his last breath, he had loving people surrounding him in the comfort of home. We are sad to lose him but grateful that his spirit took a daring leap and that his suffering is over. We all know that he had better things to look forward to.
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