July 5, 1879, Logan, Kansas.

1968, Logan, Kansas.

Daughter of Pe­ter and Al­pha Ama Gray Han­sen, Kate grad­u­at­ed from high school in Bel­oit, Kan­sas, in 1896. After earn­ing a teach­ing li­cense, her first po­si­tion was at a rur­al school just east of Mar­vin, Kan­sas, in 1896. From 1896-1897, she taught and served as as­sist­ant prin­ci­pal of the grade school in Lo­gan. In 1899, she moved to Law­rence, Kan­sas, to at­tend the Un­i­ver­si­ty of Kan­sas (KU). After earn­ing a mu­sic teach­er’s cer­tif­i­cate in 1901, she took a teach­ing job in the Den­ver, Col­o­ra­do, pub­lic schools, where she taught both mu­sic and Ger­man. Han­sen re­turned to KU in 1902, grad­u­at­ing with a Ba­che­lor of Arts de­gree in 1905.

Hansen was ac­tive in re­li­gious or­gan­i­za­tions, par­ti­cu­lar­ly the Young Wo­men’s Christ­ian As­so­ci­a­tion. In Feb­ru­a­ry 1905, she was award­ed a Phi Be­ta Kap­pa key. After grad­u­at­ing, she re­turned to Den­ver to teach, un­til she qual­i­fied as a mis­sion­a­ry teach­er. Hansen and her friend and col­lege class­mate, Ly­dia Lind­sey, were ap­point­ed by the Re­formed Church in the Unit­ed States to teach at a girls’ school in Ja­pan. They left Amer­i­ca in 1907 for the Mi­ya­gi Girls’ School in Sen­dai, Japan, 200 miles north of To­kyo. They would be con­nect­ed to this school for 45 years, help­ing it grow from a high school in­to a ful­ly ac­cred­it­ed li­ber­al arts col­lege and mu­sic con­serv­a­to­ry.

Hansen returned to KU in 1912, and re­ceived her Ba­che­lor of Mu­sic de­gree in 1913. Back in Japan, she or­gan­ized a con­serv­a­tory course in music, and served as Dean of that de­part­ment un­til re­tire­ment. She was al­so act­ing pre­si­dent of Mi­ya­gi Col­lege for in 1916-8, 1925-6, and 1934-5. In 1926, she en­tered the grad­u­ate school of the Chi­ca­go Mu­sic­al Col­lege and re­ceived her Mas­ters of Mu­sic with hon­ors in 1927.

In 1941, both Han­sen and Lind­sey re­turned to Amer­i­ca on the last boat to reach a U. S. port be­fore the at­tack on Pearl Harbor. Dur­ing World War II, Han­sen lec­tured and re­searched in the U.S. In 1947, she and Lind­sey re­turned to Japan to con­tin­ue teach­ing at the Mi­ya­gi Con­serv­a­tory. In the post-war per­i­od Han­sen spent much time in re­lief and re­con­struc­tion work. Mi­ya­gi Col­lege had lost se­ven build­ings in the Amer­i­can bomb­ing of Sen­dai.

Hansen and Lind­sey were honored in 1951 when the Em­per­or of Ja­pan con­ferred on each of them a ci­ta­tion and the Fourth Or­der of the Sac­red Trea­sure for out­stand­ing work in wo­men’s ed­u­ca­tion. In 1955, KU and the KU Alum­ni As­so­ci­a­tion hon­ored each of them with a Ci­ta­tion of Dis­tin­guished Ser­vice. In 1951, they re­turned to Lo­gan, Kan­sas, where Han­sen lived the rest of her life.

1. Lowly Shep­herds of Ju­dea