8

Whenever Bob got in trouble with the law, friends were quick to come forward and testify on his behalf. The link between them, often as not, was provided by Darla Hansen, Bob’s wife. Darla was active not only in her church but her community. And Darla’s friends were Bob’s friends. Among these friends were the Gerald Goldschmidt family, whom Darla knew through church. Another stalwart friend was John Sumrall, an insurance company executive. John and Bob were often inseparable. They flew together, went hunting and fishing together.

Both Sumrall and Goldschmidt testified in Bob’s behalf in 1972. What they told the court was indicative of the way they felt about their friend. John Sumrall told the judge he was a good friend of Bob’s, and said he believed Bob should be permitted to return to the community. Goldschmidt, a public health sanitarian, told the court he’d had a close relationship with Bob since he’d come north in 1967. He said he knew about Bob’s previous arson charge, but recommended they allow Bob to work in the community and get psychotherapy.

And in one respect, Bob didn’t let his friends down: He never got into trouble while he was incarcerated. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that he could work as a baker while doing his time. Maybe it had something to do with his wish to do his time and get out of jail as soon as he could. Even the halfway house was better than jail. In the halfway house, he could at least see his wife and kids with some regularity.

In fact, he wasn’t seeing them much less than when he was working in the bakery. Bob had always been a restless soul, disappearing for entire weekends at a time. What his wife didn’t realize was how he spent all of his free time.

When Darla Henrichsen had first met Bob Hansen they were both working at a Minnesota lake resort owned by Bob’s parents. Darla was working as a maid on summer vacation from college. Bob was fresh out of jail on an arson charge. He was helping his parents with painting, boat repair and whatever else they needed, as well as acting as a guide for guests on fishing trips.

The two of them soon discovered that they were from the same small town in Iowa. Not only had they gone to the same school, but the same church. Bob was four years older than Darla, however, and they’d never met before.

Their romance bloomed. They took rowboat trips out onto Leech Lake, where at night they could see a million stars. What moved Darla the most were Bob’s stories of his childhood.

“When I was in school,” he said, “I used to stutter so bad that I wouldn’t answer a question, even if the teacher called on me. It didn’t matter if I knew the answer or not. People used to make fun of me all the time,” he said. “I used to run away from people, and avoid them rather than try to have a conversation.”

That’s one reason why Darla fell in love with him: She instinctually wanted to help other people. Then, too, he was the first man ever to pay her much attention. Darla had forever been the tall girl at the school dance. She was the one who always stood stoop-shouldered on the sidelines, a full head taller than any of the boys, awaiting an invitation to dance that never comes. Never one of the pretty girls, or one of the popular girls (an honor reserved for her sister), it only made it worse that Darla was smart.

As their idyllic summer came to an end, Bob asked Darla to marry him. Always the sensible one, Darla told him that she wanted to wait until she finished school. So Bob went to Chicago for a three-week course in cake decorating at the Wilton School, and Darla returned to the University of Iowa. They wrote endless letters; it was difficult to be separated.

When Bob finished the cake decoration course, he returned to work at his parents’ resort. He even drove down to Iowa City to visit Darla. It was a long, exhausting drive on roads that could turn treacherous with ice and snow at a moment’s notice, and Bob made the trip several times before he grew impatient. As Bob put it, they decided that “doggone it, we can get married.” The wedding took place that fall in Pocahontas, Iowa, where Darla’s parents lived.

Darla dropped out of college when they got married, and Bob took jobs wherever he could get them, mostly in bakeries. They moved throughout the Midwest in those years. From Minot, North Dakota, up near the Canadian border, to Rapid city, South Dakota, where the mountains meet the plains, and finally to Minneapolis. There, Darla enrolled at the University of Minnesota to finish what she had begun.

There was no irony in the fact that she became a schoolteacher. Or that her area of concentration was special education. Her husband had learning disabilities and speech problems similar to those of the children she worked with.

Almost immediately after Darla earned her BA, Bob suggested they move to Alaska. That faraway land of ice and snow had a mystical appeal to Bob, who’d read stories about the fantastic hunting and fishing since he was a child. It would be like moving to another country while still living in the United States. It was a place to start over, away from his parents and in-laws and the memories of his troubled Iowa past.

Bob had no difficulty talking Darla into going along. He thought her venturesome, but she probably would have followed him anyway. They moved north almost immediately, despite the disapproval of both sets of parents.

Many people dream of living in Alaska. Just as many do not stick it out. Even in boom times there aren’t enough jobs to go around. But the Hansen’s had the one requirement necessary to make a go of it on the last frontier: readily marketable skills. Teachers and bakers are always in demand.

Darla’s teaching career in Alaska proceeded on a steady course. She worked both public and private schools. To earn extra income, she sometimes tutored children with special difficulties. She had also taken many courses in her field. Darla had dedicated her life to aiding those with learning disabilities. In a way, she lived in her husband’s world each day with her students. And so it was that Christian charity and career were interwoven in Darla’s life like a prayer.

Not that Darla’s marriage to Bob Hansen was an easy one. He had a way of constantly disrupting her life: When he went to jail in 1972, their daughter Christie was about to turn two; when he went to jail in 1977, their son Johnny was two and a half. Bob was also a demanding person, given to inexplicable fits of rage. In the heat of anger, there was no reasoning with Bob Hansen.

Darla’s only refuge from Bob was Christ and the church. Her strong faith was the one thing she brought with her from the Midwest. And it was her faith that held them together for those twenty years. Because Darla was a good Christian woman, she always obeyed her husband. That much was in the Bible.