Joseph Hanson

Joseph Hanson was born to Leonard and Olga (Kluken) Hanson on October 25, 1928 on the homestead of his grandparent?s farm. Joe spent most of his early years on his grandparents farm, due to the fact that his parents lost their government bonds and their farm during the depression. Joe?s dad worked on road construction and his mother worked in private homes cooking and caring for an ill person. Even the young children did what they could. Joe?s first attempt to earn money happened when his Uncle John told him he could earn a penny for every gopher tail he gave him. This worked fine until his Uncle noticed all the gophers running around without tails. Joe went to work at 9 years old at Ralph?s Locker Plant. He swept the floor, cleaned the blocks and wrapped meat. As Joe got bigger Ralph and his brother taught Joe to cut beef. These two brothers and their family called Joe ?Joey? to this day. When Joe was 17, he quit high school and joined the Marines. He served on the light cruiser-Manchester CSS 83. After his discharge he went to refrigeration school through the GI Bill. He married Donna Hawkinson on December 19, 1948. They lived in Minneapolis and Joe went to school and worked part time in a small grocery store as a meat cutter. Donna worked at Warmer Hardware as a tube cashier. When Joe graduated they moved to Sisseton. Their three children, Chuck, JoAnn and Susan were born there. Joe started his own refrigeration company, but Joe was too good hearted and did a lot of work for free. When this didn?t work out they moved to Watertown and Joe went to work for True Electric Company. After suffering a serious electrical burn, Joe decided to move on. He worked for the Ralph Larson Co. in Sioux Falls where he repaired freezers, ice machines, and air conditioners. He was with Ralph?s for 11 years until they closed. He then went to work at Baete-Forseth for about 5 years and then for Sunshine Foods. His next challenge was Iowa Pork in Mitchell, South Dakota where he helped start up their processing plant in buildings that the previous owners had just cut off the pipes and conduit and pulled out their equipment. With this completed and their daughter JoAnn and Chuck just having their daughter, they moved back to Sioux Falls to be closer to family. Joe found work as the maintenance supervisor at Lakeside Dairy. He worked there for 11 years until he retired. Joe enjoyed his time at the homestead in Marshall County and with his retirement spent the majority of the summer at the farm. Throughout his life, he always enjoyed time in the out of doors, so at the farm he did improvements, fished and gardened. He looked forward to the weekends when family and especially grandchildren would come to visit. Joe is survived by his wife, Donna; his children, Charles (Sandie) Hanson, JoAnn (Charles) Heck and Susan (Jim) Madson; 5 grandchildren, Sally (Ben) Gray, Kristen (Rob) Yates, Katie and Jessia Hanson, Nancy Madson; 2 great granddaughters, Chloe and Josephine. Joe is preceded in death by his parents, 2 sisters, Sylvia and Karen (Edith) and a brother Albert.