It all starts. . .
. . . Mimi and I met while attending Indiana State College in Indiana Pennsylvania. We were Art Education Majors. Mimi, whose proper maiden name was, Marian Cathryn Roberts is a graduate of Leechburg (PA) High School class of 1955. My proper name is Wesley Edwin Hakanen and I graduated from Turtle Creek (PA) High School in 1951. I served three years in the U.S. Army before entering college. We both entered Indiana State College in the Fall of 1955. We married in 1959, at the start of our senior year. After graduation we acquired teaching positions in the Punxsutawney Public Schools.
Beginning a family. . .
. . We spent the next three years in Punxsutawney (PA) where our first son, Chriss, was born in 1961. I then took a teaching job with the Gateway Public School System in Monroeville (PA), in the Fall of 1962. We then moved to Penn Hills (PA), a suburb of Pittsburgh, adjacent to the Borough of Monroeville. In 1965 I took an administrative position with Penn State University’s Continuing Education Services. That job took us to Uniontown (PA).
The family grows. . .
. . Our second son, Evan, was born in 1966, shortly after we moved to Uniontown. Our third son, Eran, was also born in Uniontown, in 1969. Shortly after Eran was born, a transfer moved us back to Penn Hills.
Settling in. . .
. . We purchased a house in Level Green (PA) in 1972 and spent the next fifteen years there. Our three son’s graduated from Penn-Trafford High School. Chriss and Evan went on to Penn State University from which they both graduated. I then took a job with Edinboro University of Pennsylvania and moved to Edinboro (PA). Our youngest son Eran attended and graduated from Edinboro University.
Expanding the family . . .
. . In 1988 our middle son Evan married his high school sweetheart, Teresa Maleski. The marriage lasted only five years. They were divorced in 1993. Then in 1995 our oldest son married Dolly Hsu, a divorcee with a beautiful seven year-old daughter, Freda. They blessed us with three grandsons, Chriss Wesley II, born in 1996, Billy, born in 1997 and Denny, born in 2001. Then in June 2001 our youngest son, Eran, married Peiyu Lan and the couple has blessed us with another a grandson, Wesley Tai, in 2003 and a granddaughter, Marcella Rae in 2005. Dolly and Peiyu were born and raised in Taiwan, a fact that adds another challenging dimension to our research.
The story continues . . .
. . As mentioned, this is a “work-in-progress” and things change. In 2003 we learned that Chriss and Dolly were going through difficult times in their relationship. They separated and then divorced in 2008. Time marches on! We continue to enjoy our role as grandparents and help Dolly as much as we can. We still hold onto the hope that all our kids and grandkids will someday value the information we have gathered. You can see what we have gathered so far by going to our ‘Genealogy’ and ‘Photo’ pages. In addition to reading some of Wes’s thoughts about his past and present memories and impressions regarding just about everything you can click here.
