Geraldine “Gerrie” Mae Hansen, born March 26, 1933, in Medicine Hat, Alberta, to Hector and Helen Alexander, passed away recently in Victoria, BC, at the age of 90. She had been in poor health for some time and was freed from the limitations of her mortal body on June 19, 2023.

Gerrie spent her young years in Brooks, Alberta, where she met and married her lifelong partner, Bob Hansen, husband and friend. Together, they soon had two children, Linda and Neil, and the young family moved to Calgary for twelve years before moving again and settling in Sedgewick, Alberta, where Bob and Gerrie lived and worked until Bob’s passing in 2015. After 83 years in Alberta, Gerrie moved to Victoria in 2016 to be near her son, Neil.

Predeceased by her parents, Hector and Helen, her husband, Bob, and her daughter, Linda Jensen (Eric), she will be dearly missed by her sister, Barb Pottage (Ray, deceased), her son, Neil, her granddaughters, Joanne Hewison (Shawn), and Lovena and Naia Morrell, her great-grandchildren, Christopher and Aliesha, and her great-great-grandchildren, Dante, Gabriele, Alex, and Scarlet. She also leaves behind many nieces and nephews.

Gerrie had a quiet but careful sense of personal style and several of her nieces have commented on the petite, elegant figure she used to cut at family gatherings, urban and just a little chic. Blessed with good genes, she was youthful in appearance all her life, so much so that in a community play she was cast as the sister of the character who was played by her son. At thirty-six, she could pass for a teenager.

Quiet and kind-hearted, Gerrie had a famously sweet tooth, and there were always small dishes of peppermints and jellybeans lying around the house, always one or two in her pockets. There was usually something baking in the oven and sometimes taffy on the stove. She collected Swarovski crystal figurines, the display of which brought a sense of sparkling and mesmerized wonder to the kids, especially the girls.

Gerrie was involved off and on over the years in a number of community activities. In Calgary, she canvassed door to door for the Canadian Cancer Society and served in full uniform as a Tawny Owl for the Girl Guide Brownies. In Sedgewick, she was an active member of the Kinettes and volunteered her time baking and cooking for different community groups, including the United Church, where she and Bob were members.

Gerrie also had a successful working life, starting as a teenaged bank teller in Brooks and then in Calgary and Sedgewick. Her main career, however, was as co-founder, co-owner, and co-manager of the several businesses she and Bob ran in Sedgewick for an impressive 47 years, starting in 1968.

The early days in business in Sedgewick were modest, but when better times came along and the hard work began to pay off, Gerrie and Bob took to travelling the world. They made many short trips to places some of us can only dream about: Hawaii, the Caribbean, the South Pacific, nearly every country in Europe including Russia, Northern Africa, China, Australasia, and South America. They often went in a small group with friends and family, plenty of ski trips and ocean and river cruises, and of course, Las Vegas. They worked hard and they played hard.

For nearly 50 years Gerrie and Bob Hansen were a well-known presence in the life of Sedgewick, Alberta. And in Sedgewick they are at rest, still together.

A family service will be held at a later date and Gerrie’s cremated remains interred near Bob at the Sedgewick Cemetery, with some perhaps scattered in some far-flung part of the world in memory of her love of travel.

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