Elloyd Hanson

PROVINCETOWN - Elloyd Hanson, 74, a most beloved resident of our town, died Thursday, Jan. 4, 2007, following a six-month battle with cancer.

Born in Viroqua, Wis., he was the only child of Otto and Lydia (Tveit) Hanson, Norwegian Americans who ran a small dairy and tobacco producing farm in Viroqua, near Lacrosse. Elloyd graduated from Luther College in Iowa, where he studied organ and piano among other things. Drafted into the Army, he was sent to Berlin just prior to the end of the war, where he served as a chaplain's assistant.

After returning to the United States, he attended the Union Theological Seminary in New York City, also working in several libraries and in a prestigious art gallery.

He got involved with the Morningside Recorder Consort, led by Joel Newman, who soon became his longtime partner. There he studied with the virtuoso Bernard Krainis. He was then appointed editor of the new American Recorder, the journal of the American Recorder Society.

Joel and Elloyd visited Provincetown in the summer of 1962, and a year later Elloyd purchased the Provincetown Bookshop from its founder Paul Smith, where he has been selling books ever since. Along with his shop duties, he taught recorder classes for many years at the Cape Cod Conservatory of Music, as well as the Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill. He also gave instruction at many summer workshops run by the American Recorder Society and the Country Dance & Song Society, where his students often expressed their sheer devotion!

Elloyd has long been an active member of the Church of St. Mary of the Harbor; he has sat as a member of the vestry, participated in search committee work, and until recently was a one person altar guild. Ever so many Christmas Eve Masses have witnessed him and his recorder trio, The Band of Three, including Nancy Solit and Joel Newman, performing in the musical prelude that precedes the service. Tom Peters and Marian Pressler also played with Elloyd in recent years.

Gentleness, grace and kindness were his everyday attributes; but they were coupled to a Norse strength of character and will. He was for many of us, a pattern of the grace one may live by and in. The many who met him in the Bookshop or in the life of his church will not forget him easily. Nor will his spouse and partner of 42 years, Joel Newman.

A Requiem Eucharist will take place on Saturday, Jan. 13, at 3 p.m., in St. Mary of the Harbor Church, 517 Commercial St., Provincetown.

If desired, memorial contributions in memory of Elloyd may be made to St. Mary of the Harbor Church, 517 Commercial St., Provincetown, MA 02657.

Arrangements are under the direction of the Gately-McHoul Funeral Home of Provincetown.