Once, on a whim, Mary Lynn Hanson let her husband, Terry, do the cooking for their regular bridge game with family friend Ron Olson. Being a meticulous party-planner known for her great taste in everything, she gave one brief warning to her husband: Don’t let the fish burn.
As friends whiled away the evening, Terry Hanson’s attention waned. When he finally pulled the fish off the grill, his wife unwrapped the foil to find nothing but charcoal.
“He turned to her and said, `Well, there’s still some stuff there,'” recalled Olson with a wry laugh.
It was with stories like this, of the family’s good times together, their straight-faced jokes and relentless teasing, that the 200 mourners gathered Tuesday in a Naperville church remembered the couple and their daughter, Katherine “Kate” Hanson Tsao. The three were found slain along with Tsao’s husband, Jimmy, 34, last week in Aurora.
Little was said of the violent end to their lives at the two-hour service in Calvary Church. The three caskets stood closed with bouquets of white, pink and red flowers laid on top next to photographs of each of the deceased. Bulletin boards at the church’s entrance displayed dozens of photographs, including an old Christmas card picture of the entire family.
Rev. Ron Markese acknowledged there were many unanswered questions among family members and mourners.
“We’re confused, we’re angry, we’re upset, we’re hurt. We don’t understand,” Markese said. “I believe God will bring us comfort.”
In the meantime, family and friends offered stories as snapshots of the Hansons’ lives.
Mary Lynn and Terrance–Terry to his friends and family–were high school sweethearts in the 1960s, a perfect pair with a mutual affinity for organization and entertaining. Mary Lynn, 55, known as “Martha Stewart” to some of her co-workers, worked as hard at shopping for the latest fashion as she did as an account representative at Met Life in Aurora, friends said. She was quick with a quip and honest to a fault, as willing to help family and friends redecorate their homes as she was to caution a niece on her poor choice of lipstick shade, family members said.
Once, when her daughter Jennifer was sick, Mary Lynn went to her home “to help.”
“I got home, and my entire house was re-arranged,” remembered Mary Lynn’s son-in-law, Korey Williams.
Terry Hanson, 57, worked 30 years at Ashland Distribution in Willow Springs as a sales manager. A charmer and a handsome man, Terry “owned” his sales district, colleagues recalled. Terry loved to tease his family and friends, and was known for his favorite saying, “Don’t get mad, get even.”
Terry Hanson was rarely seen without his laptop, and could send e-mails, talk on the phone, and pacify his grandchildren in the car on long trips at the same time, Williams recalled. When he handed over some accounts to a colleague, he did so with a trunk-full of meticulously organized files.
More Top Picks Best Sunrise Alarm Clocks Under 100
“He loved his job almost as much as he loved his family,” Olson said.
Kate Hanson Tsao, 31, loved planning as much as her mother did. She loved taking “girls-only” trips with her mother, niece and sister.
A staunch Republican who volunteered with the local party and frequently called the Bill O’Reilly radio show, Tsao once shouted with glee on a trip to New York when she noticed that First Lady Laura Bush was sitting at a table near her during lunch, said her aunt, Mary Stutelberg.
While in Paris, she spent more time shopping for Louis Vuitton designer bags than she did at all of the other tourist sites combined, her aunt said.
Absent from the service was any mention of the Hansons’ son, Eric Hanson, who remained in custody in Portage, Wis., on charges that he threatened his sister three weeks before the family was found dead. He is alleged to have told her he would kill her if she told their parents he was stealing money from them. He is fighting extradition and has a hearing scheduled Thursday.
No one has been charged with the slayings. Prosecutors said they continue to track down leads and are working on some forensic testing of evidence collected.
At the end of the service, Markese urged the crowd to pray for whoever was responsible for the deaths.
“I want to encourage you to pray for the person that committed these crimes, because God loves that person too,” he said. “God wants to forgive that person too. But they need to repent and to ask forgiveness. So we need to pray for that person.”
A visitation for Jimmy Tsao is scheduled for 4 to 8 p.m. Wednesday at the Beidelman-Kunsch Funeral Home in Naperville.
———-