Ansel Posing with His Bow and Arrows with the Black Bear He Shot Ron AI
Wild game was a major source of food for his growing family of three that came in short order in addition to the two children he had from Celia that he helped support.
When Walter sold the farm to retire, Ansel helped him buy a surplus army truck in 1947 and they drove the new Alcan Highway to Alaska in hopes of making big money. That wasn’t the case, and they returned home where Ansel resumed his trucking company with Nona.
Ansel’s prominence in the community and knowledge of what it needed helped him grow his company to several trucks and drivers. Taking advantage of their location, halfway on an east-west major highway across the state, the business was finally making money.
The business really took off in 1952 when Ansel bought a new fertilizer truck and began spreading fertilizer and lime on local farmer’s fields.
Of course, the business grew, but Nona, who managed the accounting for the business, found that Ansel spent too much of their income on his outdoor pursuits. Additionally, the part-time drivers he hired were mostly ne’er-do-wells and drunks who often let him down getting their contracts with local farmers completed promptly and well.
Eventually, they quarreled over money as the business began to fail, going into debt using her retirement savings and credit. Ansel sought solace at local bars rather than go home after an unsuccessful day of trying to find new customers.
Ansel always had a gift of gab–joking and wisecracking–that endeared him to others. It probably was a defense against PTSD he’d acquired in the horrors he experienced during the war. Drinking was a big part of the German culture and Ansel probably qualified as an alcoholic, too.
Ansel liked to stop at a small country bar about 30 miles from his home, where a cute barmaid named Audrey worked. Sometimes when there was no one else in the bar, he confided in her his concern about his wife and his responsibility to his five children. He wanted to be free from having to earn money to clothe, school and feed them.
Audrey had a similar problem. She had five children with her farmer husband. The farm didn’t make enough money to support them and she needed to work as a barmaid to try to make ends meet, but failed. She found Ansel much more exciting than her cow shit smelling husband, and soon found herself in bed with him after she closed the bar for the night.
They both hid the secret of their affair so well, neither family nor the locals knew what was going on. In the meantime, meeting when the bar was closed and nobody saw them, they plotted a plan to get away from their obligations weighing heavy on their minds.
They mulled over new names and settled on the last name of Hansen. It was very common and wouldn’t be noticed wherever they used it. Likewise, Ansel decided to change his name to Edward Robert Hansen, so he could call himself Ed Hansen. Audrey chose Rebecca (Becky) Jane Hansen with a fake story about how they met and married.
Ansel went to a nearby county seat and applied for a replacement Social Security card for one he claimed he had lost. Used his same date of birth but a town in another county rather than the one he was born in. Audrey didn’t get one to replace the one she had with his promise… “You will never have to work another day in your life.”
Ansel bought her a cheap used car they parked near the bar in an abandoned shed as their getaway car and they both loaded it with what they would need to get away in the following days.
When she closed the bar the morning of March 12, 1962, at 1 am, Audrey left the family car at the bar, walked to the getaway car and drove off to wait for Ansel.
She drove to where he had his corn truck and tried to sleep waiting for him. Knowing he was scheduled to leave the yard at 4 am so he would get to the corn market in Winona in the morning about 10–his usual way of buying corn at a granary. When Audrey saw Ansel leave the yard, she followed. When they got to the Mississippi River and the bridge, he pulled off the road and parked the truck. She drove up alongside.
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When Nona contacted the FBI and presented them with what she knew, they told her they couldn’t get Involved because the truck hadn’t crossed state lines, making it a matter for the state police who had already been involved helping the sheriff find Ansel. The family didn’t know whether he was kidnapped for the money and killed… Maybe thrown in the river… Or just ran off?
Often, there were rumors about the barmaid, Audrey. Maybe he had run off with her. But no one in the widening investigation had seen them. Nona waited and wondered…
Nona declared bankruptcy and liquidated the business, ending up in debt. She relied on her salary to pay off the debt and raise her three children, while hearing occasional rumors that turned up nothing in regard to where and how Ansel disappeared. The kids grew up and occasionally investigated on their own, but found nothing.
Tory, Ansel’s son by Nona, especially, traveled a lot and was always on the lookout to spot his dad, because he was 14 when his father left, and he remembered him fondly as well as what he looked like from all their adventures hunting and fishing together.
Tory wanted to be like his father and was. He started first with a lawn mowing business in Wither, using other kids, which enabled him to buy a motorcycle at 16, and then he broadened into other ventures which eventually made him a millionaire.
A weekly countywide newspaper operated in the next town, and Nona served as the reporter covering news from her own town. While the kids were growing up, she reported what the family was doing and published the details under her column. When people moved away, they often got subscriptions, and the newspapers were mailed to their new location. She thought that maybe, just maybe, Ansel, if still alive, might be reading the paper. She often checked, but never found his name on the subscription list.
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That fateful night, Ansel parked by the side of the road, grabbed the bag with the cash and his usual change of clothes on such trips, opened the door to the cab and stepped down into two inches of new snow as Audrey pulled up with the car. He walked over to the car.
It was 7am, but still dark. No cars were in sight, and there had been very few on the drive over; just the way he knew it would be from previous trips.
Ansel hopped in the car, threw the bag in the back seat, leaned over and kissed Audrey. “We did it! We’re free.”
“We sure did, Hon. I’ll have to admit, it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I’m excited. But along the way here I felt like pulling over and puking. I was shaking so much when I got in the car, I could hardly get the key in the ignition to start it. And then, waiting for you to come to the yard and pick up the truck was the hardest. It got cold in the car, and I thought of my kids.”
“Don’t worry, Honey. We’ll be okay. We’ve just gotta leave all that behind. Just you and me. We’ll be happy. I know. And they don’t know anything about us. That’s a good thing.”
But those regrets stayed with her longer than they did with Ansel. He knew he had a way of finding out what was going on back home. Nona reported the Wither news to the Hazelton Enterprise every week. She always reported on the family first. Thinking maybe he would read it?
They drove on stopping only to grab food at gas stations rather than stopping in any restaurants. Trying not to have anyone noticing them along the way if someone was investigating their route later.
They switched off driving and sleeping until finally, when they were driving into the reflected snow and ice blinding setting sun, they looked for a place to stop, renew their hot love for one another and shed the fears they had in leaving.
It was dark, and they were exhausted somewhere in Colorado when they pulled into a little circle of cabins for $3 with a vacancy sign to rest for the night. It ended up being well into the next day when they had to leave by noon or pay another $3.
They made one more cheap stop for the night in Nevada at a place called Las Vegas, gambled a bit and got a free room, free food and free drinks for buying $50 in chips. High rollers at that time, but decided to stop gambling when they still had $25 in chips left.
The next morning, they called for an early wake-up and drove all the way to the beach at sunset. It seemed like the most beautiful thing they’d ever seen. Ansel took out their fishing gear from the trunk and they caught and fried their first ocean fish for Audrey and for him since Alaska.
Along the way they bought some cheap hair dye and dyed their hair. Audrey chose a red to match Rita Hayworth and Ansel an ink jet black. “Do I look like a movie star, Ansel?” She asked.
“You sure do, Honey. You fit right in with these Californians.” They both laughed.
“And you look like a gangster with that slicked back black hair… My gangster.” Ansel kissed her for that remark.
“Do I need to grow a mustache?” He smirked.
“Only if you want to tickle my lips.” She coyly replied.
They toured all of California for a while and ate mostly fish they caught in the rivers and on the beaches. Also, some squirrels that he plinked under lonely oak trees where nobody heard the shot because he was hunting out of season without a license. Did it because he liked fried squirrel so much. Audrey did, too.
But when their nest egg dwindled to $500, Audrey began to worry. Fortunately, by that time they were working picking crops and frequenting a bar in Modesto where they met another couple, Bob and Jill Marcus from Elkhart, Indiana.
They got to talking about mobile homes and Bob revealed that he and Jill were going to open a factory to build mobile homes right there in town. Just needed a little cash to cover their construction contract and loan down payment.
Ed, getting familiar with a new nickname, said, “Where I come from, a couple of farm boys started a mobile home factory in central Wisconsin in 1949 and it is a booming factory like you just told me. Like what’s going on in Elkhart, Indiana. But it's a lot of money to haul them all the way to California.
How much money do you need?”
To be continued…
Copyright 2024 © Ronald W. Hull
7/17/24
