Zelma "Maurine" (Sutton) Hansen

Zelma Maurine (Sutton) Hansen was born 20 May 1925 at Moses, Union County, New Mexico.  She was the first of ten children of Lester Carlyle Sutton and Stella May Perkins.  A natural beauty all her life, she was healthy, slender and strong.  Maurine loved vegetable gardening, raised flowers that graced many church pulpits and weddings, and devoted thousands of hours to research her and Harry’s family’s history.   Quiet, studious and empathetic, Maurine had been raised during the Great Depression, learning from her mother that “you can never outgive the Lord.”  She was a great friend to her neighbors, who together formed a safety net you could count on when things got rough.  She loved to sing, and always reminded us that “tough times don’t last; tough people do.”
Survived smallpox, polio and cancer.  As a tiny infant Maurine nearly died of smallpox.  Just before 1st grade at Rainier, she suffered a bout of polio that damaged her lower back and deformed her left knee, leaving her unable to walk for nearly a year.   She survived cancer diagnosed in 1985.  
Parents.  Maurine’s mother Stella May Perkins, born 1905 at Upola, Elk, Kansas, was plagued from early childhood with very weak ankles, possibly from rickets.  Stella’s parents were Henry William Perkins born 1875 in Iowa and Iva Rosalia “Ivy” Speaks born 1883 in Kansas.  Henry had a fierce temper, and was an autocratic father.  Stella was the second of 8 children, 4 girls and 4 boys.  By age 7 she was expected to care for her younger siblings while their mother worked beside her husband to earn a barely adequate income.  By the age of 10, Stella was also expected to cook dinner for her family every evening, tend the garden and clean the house.  She was only permitted to attend about 2 years of school.  Her family migrated from Plains, Kansas to New Mexico in 1914, and settled on the flat land where anything you planted would grow.
Maurine’s father Lester Carlyle Sutton, was born 1901 at Viola, Mercer, Illinois, to  William Jefferson “Jeff” Sutton born 1860 in Missouri, and his German bride Mary Maria (pronounced Mariah) Liebendorfer born 1860 in Iowa.  Lester had 3 older siblings, Bill, Lee and Lena.   Jeff and Maria and their children remained a tightknit family all their lives, and often moved from one area to another under the leadership of their oldest son Bill, who never married.  Lester worked in agriculture all his life, was soft spoken and frugal, rarely angered but was clearly the boss of the family.  He had a 6th grade education, and rolled his own cigarettes.  They migrated from Beaver County in the Oklahoma panhandle to New Mexico in 1915.  The best land was already claimed, and they settled in the Brakes, scrub forest on hillsides with forage for cattle and sheep.  
Advent of the Dust Bowl.  In about 1925, two years after Maurine’s parents Lester and Stella married and moved in with Lester’s parents, the weather began to change.  The crops were hailed out, and the rains failed to come two years in a row.  Stella’s parents moved back to Kansas.    In 1924, Lester and Lee went to Oklahoma for the wheat harvest, returning to New Mexico in time for Maurine’s birth.  
Lester’s older siblings, Lee and Lena moved with their families to Portland, OR.  In 1927 when baby Ina was 4 months old, the family sold what they could, loaded their meager possessions, and set off for Oregon with 4 adults and 2 small children in a Model A Ford.  They slept overnight in a tent, and stopped along the way in California to pick cotton, finally arriving in Portland, which was then a small town nestled in vast stands of huge tree stumps.  They moved in with Lee and Lena’s families temporarily.   Lee and Lester worked in a cooperage making barrels.  Jeff and  Bill bought about 8 cleared acres of land on a plateau above the Columbia River in Rainier.  Lester helped them built a tiny two story house for Jeff and Mamie.  This was the first home Maurine remembered.  
Barely escaped with their lives.  The small house was getting kind of cramped since baby Cecil had arrived in 1928.  One summer they lived in a cabin in the old growth forest, where Lester drove a “donkey” steam engine that moved newly felled trees down the hills by reeling out an extremely dangerous steel cable.  The forest caught fire, and in the middle of the night the family awoke barely in time to climb on a hand propelled flat car with a few possessions and flee for their lives.  For years after, Maurine awoke with nightmares about that terrifying journey, and the panicked animals that overtook them fleeing the blaze.
Columbia River flooding.  After their marriage, Lester and Stella and their growing family lived with his parents until Stella pleaded for a home of their own.  Lester and his older brother Bill bought 5 acres of Dike land along the Columbia River and built a two room house and a little barn.   In 1931 the young family moved in, and lived happily there until Spring 1936.  In 1935, a big flood of the Columbia River washed many of their neighbors’ houses off their foundations, and left the Sutton home filled with mud and dead fish.  Lester vowed he would never farm there again.  They hadn’t been able to sell their annual crops because the cannery in Portland wouldn’t take them, and ended up dumping the precious peas by the side of the road.  Lester owed $7 in property taxes and could not pay the bill.  
Starting over.  When they got the place cleaned up, Lester and Bill went to Stanfield, moved their parents into a rented house in town, and traded the dike land at Rainier for a 10 acre farm with a small home and barn on the Old Loop Road between Stanfield and Hermiston in north central Oregon.  The house consisted of two little rooms and a tarpaper shed roof.  The tiny barn was in a field of alkali, and two sad little trees were all that promised to be a yard.  There was no grass, only sand and sandburs and thistle and sagebrush, with no water on the property.  Lester was 34, Stella 31.  They had 5 children younger than 12 years old.  They were starting over.  Stella bore Lester 5 more children, Elroy, Gary, Beverly, Wanda Jeanne, and Aaron by 1948.  Lester died in 1973 of cancer, Stella in 1986 of heart failure.  Both are buried in the Hermiston Cemetery.
Divine intervention.  As Bill had predicted years previously, the US Government cleared hundreds of acres of sagebrush near Umatilla on the Columbia River and began construction of one of three military weapons caches strategically placed around the United States.   Lester was hired to drive a truck that transported live bombs between huge, camouflaged buildings in the complex.  One night he called in sick due to a migraine headache.  His family all heard a huge BOOM! and rushed outside.  The relief driver couldn’t control a crew of workers who began tossing bombs as they were removed from the truck.  A dropped bomb exploded, setting off the entire bomb igloo in a gigantic blast.  They did find the belt buckle of one of the workers.  Other than that, there was just a huge hole in the ground.  It was the only reported accident at Umatilla Ordinance Depot in its existence.
Formal education.  Maurine was a top student in rural Stanfield and Hermiston schools, and rode a bicycle from 2 to 8 miles twice a day to school depending on whether she caught the bus.  She worked in the school office, held a number of part-time jobs in the community, and  was promised a full ride scholarship to Stanford University in California by her high school principal if she would continue her education after graduating.  
A handsome young soldier intervenes.  However, during a USO dance at Pendleton, Oregon, during World War II, Maurine had met and couldn’t forget a handsome, tall blond Danish sergeant with sparkling eyes and a dimple from the big city of Council Bluffs, Iowa.  He asked her to marry him the first time they danced, though she turned him down saying she intended to complete her college education before marrying.  Harry Junior Hansen and his buddy in the US Army Air Corps had been trained to install a Link Trainer, where prospective pilots learned to navigate at night by the constellations before radar was invented.  He and Maurine corresponded for four years, and shortly before his transfer to Louisiana called her to say if she married him and worked to put him through college, he would get a good job and pay for her college education.  She had met many handsome men in the service, and Harry couldn’t dance worth beans.   He was a broken spirit, having lost his mother at three years old and been raised by stepmothers, grandparents and close neighbors.  She thought she could heal him and finally gave in and said yes.  They were married in the Episcopal Church on 19 February 1944 at Pendleton, Umatilla, Oregon during an unexpected blizzard.  
On wings of angels.  Harry and Maurine were stationed in Louisiana for 7 months, then in York Co., PA for 6 months prior to his honorable discharge.  He bought a Terraplane automobile, reinstalled the engine, picked up Maurine and their few possessions, and headed from Pennsylvania to Pendleton in the dead of winter.  The car had no heater, they had no tire chains, the tires were bald, and they started out with $40 cash.  They swallowed their pride and borrowed cash from relatives in Iowa to complete the trip.  Harry had spent his discharge bonus on civilian clothes and the car.  On one long stretch of road they drove for many miles in deep snow with no tire ruts, then were informed the road had been closed for several days.
Concluding notes.  Harry and Maurine sacrificed their dreams of college to support their growing family.  Carol Grace was born in 1949, Wendell Harry in 1951 and Jeffrey Lyle in 1967.  Harry worked for Boeing aircraft as a meticulous electrician, though he was color blind.  In 1948, Maurine worked in an executive office at Boeing, and sometimes modelled for photos published in the company newsletter.  She held numerous other jobs through the years in support of the family.
The Hansens joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at Ephrata, Washington in 1958, and researched their family history together for more than 50 years.  After retiring, they travelled to Iowa, Illinois and New Mexico to visit living relatives and obtain records.  Carol left the church in 1970 and returned in 2015 following the deaths of her son and daughter-in-law.  She worked in education and law and is retired.  Wendell completed a tour of duty in Vietnam and returned home safely.  He has remained active in the church all his life, is married to Michelle, has 4 children, and 2 grandchildren.  He worked as a journeyman mechanic and master welder and is retired.  Jeffrey Lyle married his high school sweetheart, Candy.  They have been married 25 years.
Harry and Maurine lived in Washington, Oregon, and California during their married lives, and retired back on the land where Maurine’s grandparents Jeff and Mamie died.  Harry died 5 April 2006 at Walla Walla, WA at age 85 of heart failure.  Maurine died 10 June 2025 at age 100 at Richland, WA, also of heart failure.  She is survived by brothers Gary (Frankie) Sutton of Nebraska, and Aaron (Donna) Sutton of Stanfield; and sisters Beverly Shatz of Olympia and Wanda Jeanne Davies of La Grande.  Harry and Maurine will be buried side by side at Pleasant View Cemetery north of Stanfield, Umatilla County, Oregon on 21 June 2025.  May they rest in peace.
Note of appreciation.  Maurine’s children express appreciation to Kadlec Hospital, Tri-Cities Chaplaincy (Hospice) and Willowbrook Heights Adult Family Home of Richland for Maurine’s care the final 6 months of her life.
The Zoom link for virtual attendance of the funeral service for Zelma Maurine (Sutton) Hansen at 10:00 a.m. on June 21, 2025 is:

https://zoom.us/j/6842553381?pwd=L0hZbE96VHdSNFRxQ0djdCtFc1djQT09

Alternatively, log onto Zoom and enter the following:
Meeting ID 684 255 3381
Passcode: 463424

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Funeral 10 am Saturday, June 21, LDS Church Paradise Bldg, 4500 Maple Lane, West Richland.  Burial 1 pm Pleasant View Cemetery, Stanfield. 

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Burns Mortuary of Hermiston in charge of arrangements.

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