Lawrence Melton

Elizabeth Hanson

The Island Funeral Home & Crematory

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Elizabeth Rohland Hanson of Hilton Head Island died peacefully on June 14, 2025, on Hilton Head Island.  She was born on April 6, 1923, in Brooklyn, NY and grew up in Roslyn Estates on Long Island.  The daughter of the late Louis Osmond Rohland and Bessie Leonori Rohland, she attended Vassar College and Columbia University.
She was not a women’s liberationist.  It was crucially important to her that she made it in her career without receiving special consideration because she was a woman.  However, throughout her life she was often the “first female”.  Among her “first’s”: She was the first female editor of her high school yearbook, an active member of an executive’s club in Milwaukee the first year they included women, and the first female to eat lunch in the Executive Dining Room of a major corporation.  She also participated in a business meeting held at the Princeton Club in New York City when women were not allowed in the Club and she had to sneak in through the employees’ entrance.  Her career was in personnel, labor relations, human resources; her title changing with the times.  Her career included employment with a defense corporation, Fairchild Guided Missiles; a professional organization, American Institute of Certified Public Accountants; a manufacturer, Plastronics, Inc.; and Vice President of Personnel, First Federal Savings and Loan of Wilmette.
Elizabeth and her late husband, Bill, retired to Hilton Head in January 1990.  On Hilton Head, she was president of the Women’s Association of Hilton Head Island, 1998-1999, treasurer of her investment club which was disbanded after twenty years of successful investing, and editor of the Observer, the quarterly newsletter of The Heritage Library.  As a Heritage volunteer she organized and maintained the Vertical Files in addition to her role as Observer editor.  She was a member of the Hilton Head Island Bridge Association, the Women’s Association of Hilton Head Island, and an honorary member of the Lowcountry Chapter of the USNAA.
She was preceded in death by her husband, William Vernon Hanson, her sons, Seth Rohland Willets and William Westervelt Hanson and her sister, Ruth Rohland Hinrichs.  She is survived by three daughters: Maree Elizabeth Hanson (Pat Allison), Daufuskie Island; Pamela “Frog” Leonori Haertel (Steve), Aiken, SC; and Susan Hanson Roberts (Bryan), Lake Villa, IL; and a daughter-in-law, Dorte Hanson (widow of William), Copenhagen, Denmark.  Survivors also include three grandchildren: Johan Hanson, Copenhagen; Wendy Wood (Grahame), California; Collin Clarke (Lauren), Illinois; and four great-grandchildren: Audrey and Oliver Wood and Chloe and Valerie Clarke.
Inurnment will be in the United States Naval Academy columbarium with her husband’s ashes.  In accordance with her wishes there will be no formal observance of her death.
If you wish to make a donation in her memory, Elizabeth has requested that donations be made to The Heritage Library where she had a wonderful second career as editor of The Heritage Observer; The Heritage Library, P.O. Box 5950, Hilton Head Island, SC 29938-5950.

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Elizabeth Hanson Obituary | Altogether

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