Columnist Russ Hannah, writing for NorthJersey.com, recalls the day the Essex Fox Hounds (NJ) paid tribute to Bert Hannah, his late father. Bert wasn’t a foxhunter, a landowner, or a captain of industry. He was, writes Russ, an “ordinary man who had once been a Minnesota lumberjack with a third-grade education, if that.”
Bert was a caretaker on a large estate near the Brady estate and Hamilton Farms. The latter represented five thousand acres, constituting the primary Essex hunting country. The former, Martha Brookes Hutcheson’s estate of 104 acres, where Bert Hannah served as caretaker, was closed to the hunt by the owner as the result of a fallen rider being seriously injured there years earlier.
Nevertheless, Bert Hannah was an animal person. He bred field trial beagles—one a 1963 National Champion, Longview Susie at left in news photo with two of her offspring. And he loved horses.
Bert was always friendly to the Essex riders, stopping to talk as they went by. Any injured or lost foxhound that passed Bert’s way was taken in by him, fed, and cared for before being returned to kennels.
Upon the death of Mrs. Hutcheson, the estate was bequeathed to the Morris County Park System and is now known as Bamboo Brook Park. The decedent’s will also granted Bert Hannah lifetime rights to his home and a salary to be paid from park funds.
Bert continued to live there for some time, and died in his home in October, 1985 at age eighty. A few days later, his son Russ and other family members were at the park discussing with park employees the disposition of Bert’s tools when the sound of hounds was heard.
Russ writes, “Walking out to where we could see up the hill, out into the hay field rode the entire Essex Hunt in full dress riding habits, on beautiful horses, with the hunt Master calling in the hounds. At least twenty hounds could be seen milling about the horses. The hunt Master in the center of that big half circle sounded several notes on his horn, and they rode on….
“What an honor was paid to Bert Hannah, this ordinary man….Nobody had a camera, and most of [us] on hand that day are gone, but that sight will live on in my mind until I draw my last breath.”
Click to read Russell Hannah’s complete article.
Posted November 21, 2014