Preserving Her Memory Only Fitting Wallace Group Buys Headstone For Town Preservationist

Nancy Lee Hanson devoted her final years to preserving Wallace’s historic landmarks.

So her friends were aghast this spring to discover that Hanson, buried in the Wallace cemetery in 1992, has no landmark of her own.

Nancy Lee Hanson has no headstone.

“It’s an injustice,” said Shauna Hillman, a Wallace photographer. “She needs a marker that will portray her as the cool lady she was.”

Instead, Hanson’s grave is marked by only a small metal plate with her name on it.

“It’s what they use for temporary markers,” said pawnshop owner Rich Asher. “It seems like kind of a travesty, compared to all she’s done for this town.”

Asher discovered the problem on Memorial Day, when he was cleaning off some graves of his relatives.

“That little tin thing just didn’t look right,” he said.

He checked with the funeral home, and discovered that no one ever ordered a gravestone for Hanson.

It is unclear why. She left a substantial estate, and her obituary said she was survived by a sister in Bellevue, Wash., plus a niece and two nephews.

Her sister could not be reached for comment.

So Asher, Hillman and other members of the Historic Wallace Preservation Society - which Hanson founded - launched a drive to get Hanson a proper headstone.

They collected about $500, and ordered a 2-foot-by-1-foot granite stone.

“Since we’re doing it with donations, we couldn’t get a huge thing,” said Natalie Streeter, who works for the society. “But it’s better than what she’s got.”

Hanson died at age 65. Born in Wallace, she attended Stanford University and graduated from the University of Washington. She worked for airlines in New York and San Francisco, then for the New Orient Express travel agency in New York. She was co-owner of the Monarch Mine, which she inherited from her father, and owned the Nancy Lee Mine.

She returned to Wallace in 1970 and went to work as a reporter. She fought the federal government’s plan to build Interstate 90 through the town. When the highway came anyway, Hanson helped save the town’s Great Northern Railroad station from demolition. The building was moved, and today, it’s a museum.

Hanson also was very active in trying to preserve the town’s historic buildings and memorabilia.

“She envisioned the town changing from industrial to tourism,” said Hillman. “She’s a mother of our town.”

The new gravestone should be ready in about a month, Asher said. He doubts there will be much of a ceremony, since he’s not sure what’s appropriate.

“You don’t go have tea, or a beer bust,” he said, chuckling. “It’ll just be a quiet thing, and she’ll have a marker. I think she’d appreciate it.”

, DataTimes