Under a dazzling blue sky in early April, about 800 family members and friends bid farewell to a Chester County icon. The memorial service for Nancy Penn Smith Hannum was held under a tent on the grounds of her stately home, Brooklawn.
A red-tailed hawk crisscrossed the sky. As the service concluded, off in the distance a lone red fox trotted across the countryside.
“Mom could walk with kings and not lose the common touch,” said her eldest son John “Jock” Hannum, paraphrasing poet Rudyard Kipling. He then told the story about a friend of the family, Michael Daly, a World War II war hero who received the Congressional Medal of Honor. Speaking of Mrs. Hannum, Daly said, “Jock, never have I met anyone who could have led men into battle any better.”
They broke the mold with Mrs. Hannum.
A superb horsewoman and legendary Lady Master of the Hounds, her copper horn echoed through the Cheshire hunt country for 55 years.
A superb horsewoman and legendary Lady Master of the Hounds, her copper horn echoed through the Cheshire hunt country for 55 years. Those adventures were interwoven with this strong-willed woman’s dedication to preserving the gorgeous open country of southern Chester County. It became her mission to convince, cajole, and sometimes badger friends, neighbors, and newcomers to the area to place conservation easements on their properties. Thank you, Mrs. Hannum. We will all reap the benefits for decades to come.
I said my good-bye to Nancy Hannum on a sunny, blustery morning last December a few days before her 90th birthday. The meeting spot was Brooklawn Farm. Just off a shaded country lane, the red brick Federal-style mansion, expanded in 1930, was deeded in 1688.
Classic oil paintings and plaques adorn the walls of her home, while pieces of period furniture anchor the rooms. A mix of family photographs and other memorabilia jockey for space with champion steeplechase trophies, foxhunting and racing books, and magazines stacked on bookcases and low tables. Bronzes of hounds, horses, foxes, and hunt scenes watch over visitors in the sitting room.
Dressed in a gray wool sweater, Mrs. Hannum was frail, yet determined. There were a few fuzzy recollections. The words tumbled out deliberately, sometimes haltingly, but with her trademark passion and commitment. After swapping tales for a stretch of time, we said goodbye, and I walked into an adjoining room. Not quite finished, Mrs. Hannum shuffled her walker into the room for one last message: “Please come again. There’s so much history here, so many more stories to tell.”
Indeed.
Introduced to the saddle at age five, Nancy grew up among barrel-chested ponies and the sounds of hounds and the copper horn. Born on Long Island, NY, she was the daughter of Carol Harriman, whose stepfather was the renowned railroad entrepreneur E.H. Harriman, founder of the Union Pacific Railroad; she was the niece of New York governor Averell Harriman. Nancy’s father, Richard Penn Smith, a distinguished businessman, shared the position of Master of the Middleburg Hunt in Virginia with her mother.
Following her father’s death in 1929, Nancy’s mother, Carol, married W. Plunkett Stewart. The couple and their children, Nancy and her sister Averell, moved to Unionville. Back in 1912 her stepfather had founded Mr. Stewart’s Cheshire Foxhounds with a pack of dogs he imported from England. Over the next few decades, Stewart built his land holdings to nearly 5,000 acres. Always the visionary, the Master of the Hunt encouraged his well-heeled friends to buy property in the Unionville area.
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