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A GREATER GETTYSBURG "with each succeeding conference it has been my privilege to have had with President Hanson, I am more and more impressed with his desire to listen sympathetically to any suggestion offered for the purpose of improving college conditions ... we as alumni may feel fortunate in having Doctor Hanson as our leader."105 In 1944 the Alumni Association took the unusual step of giving the Meritorious Service Award to its "honorary alumnus" for his many contributions to the College. Possibly because as a successful city pastor he had been involved in many community activities, from the very beginning of his administration Hanson assigned a high priority to maintaining and improving good relations with the town of Gettysburg. His attitude "has always been one of broad, sympathetic understanding," declared the president of the Gettysburg National Bank in 1928. "As a result he numbers his friends here and elsewhere by legions."106 Many less influential people then and later fully agreed with this assessment. President Hanson had an able and gracious colaborer in his wife, Elizabeth Painter Hanson (1882-1956), whom he married in 1904 and who was the mother of his three sons, aged seven through fifteen when they came to Gettysburg in 1923. Elizabeth Hanson was no stranger to the College at that time. Long active in the Woman's League, she was elected its president in November 1920 and served in that capacity for three years. Her picture appeared with that of her husband on the front page of the inauguration issue of the Gettysburgian and in the first Spectrum (that of 1924) published after they moved into the White House. The editors of the latter publication dedicated the 1927 issue to her. "In Mrs. Hanson," they stated, "we have found a Christian example, a kindly friend, a loyal classmate and a true Gettysburgian." This amount of attention to a president's wife was without precedent in the history of the College. For many years "the campus mother," often wearing orchids, played an active role in student life and sometimes substituted for her husband when his duties took him out of town. Even though there was much that was distinctive in the spirit of the Hanson administration, the watchword of the College continued to be the one adopted as early as 1907. The author of a brief historical note included in the published proceedings of the inauguration was certain that the principles which the several speakers on that occasion had enunciated were those "emphasized as necessary to the Greater Gettysburg."107 The staff of the 1927 yearbook chris- ™GCB (June-July 1939], p. 13 106Quoted in the Gettysburg Times, September 28, 1928. 107Hanson Inaugural, p. 70. 48