Father Curtis Wallace Hanners Jr., Ph.D.

Father Curt Hanners, 78, of Lancaster, died at home on July 12 after a long period of declining health.  Father Hanners was born in 1932 in Baltimore, Maryland.  He was the son of the late Curtis W. Hanners and Mary (Rufenacht) Hanners, of Baltimore, Maryland.

Father Hanners completed his secondary education at Baltimore Polytechnic Institute in 1951.  He graduated from Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland in 1956 and received the Bachelor of Divinity from Yale University in 1959.  He earned his Ph.D. in psychology from the Hartford Seminary Foundation in 1973.  Father Hanners was a licensed clinical psychologist practiced in Washington County, Maine and then Lancaster, Berlin, and North Conway, New Hampshire until 1998.

Father Hanners was ordained a priest in the Episcopal Church in June 1961 in the mission Church of All Saints in Fallsington, Pennsylvania.  He served as Vicar of that parish until 1965 and then as Rector of the Church of the Epiphany until 1969.  Father Hanners moved to Durham, Connecticut where he became pastor of All Saints Episcopal Church until 1979.  He began Christ Church (Anglican mission) in Littleton, New Hampshire in 2000.  Father Hanners has been active in the current world-wide Anglo-Catholic Reform movement.

Father Hanners was an individual with many interests and talents.  He developed a keen interest and skill as a bluegrass musician and played the guitar, banjo and mandolin.  With friends he started a bluegrass band called the Lehigh Valley Ramblers.  Father Hanners designed and built from scratch a hand-crafted log cabin on the Bold Coast of Maine at the mouth of Haycock Harbor in Trescott, Maine.  Soon after moving to Lancaster in 1985, Father Hanners developed his interest in sheep and bred Rambouillet sheep from breeding stock acquired from a ranch in South Dakota; he was a member of the American Rambouillet Sheep Breeders Association.  He sold his wool to local markets and regularly attended sheep and wool festivals in the northeast where he displayed his stock.  Father Hanners was an avid reader and student of the great philosophers and theologians, especially Kierkegaard and Karl Barth, and enjoyed engaging in discussions of philosophical and theological topics.  He enjoyed poetry and occasionally wrote sharing his writings with loved ones.

He is survived by his wife of 18 years, Ursula (Crass) Hanners of Gore Road, Lancaster, a sister, Mary Jane Zimmerman of Forest Hills, Maryland; two children from his first marriage:  Lise Hanners of Weston, Connecticut, Laura Wakeman of Dillon, Montana; and four grandchildren. His first wife Martha N. Hanners predeceased him on August 20, 1989.

Calling hours will be held Thursday evening, July 15, from 5-7 PM at the Bailey Funeral Home in Lancaster. An Anglican Eucharistic Service will be held Friday morning at 11:00 AM at Community Baptist Church in Whitefield with the Reverend Philip Lyman as celebrant.  Burial will follow in the Summer Street Cemetery in Lancaster.

Contributions in memory of Father Hanners may be sent to Christ Church (Anglican), in care of Jim Steelman, treasurer, P.O. Box 220, Albany, Vermont 05820.