Dothan, Alabama: part of the Zonian diaspora

Military service and education brought opportunities into the lives of Kenneth Hannah and his seven brothers that took them away from a hard life on the family farm. Hannah reflected on the significance of their contributions.

"We teach democracy in the schools, and it's protected in the military," the former school teacher and administrator said during an interview at his suburban home in Dothan.

Pointing to a framed collection of photographs, Hannah named the soldiers in uniform, telling their rank and branch of service. All are deceased now except a younger brother in North Carolina who served with the US Army and later for the Central Intelligence Agency in Vietnam, Turkey and Japan.

Five brothers served in World War II. Hannah, who trained as a physical therapist, and his twin were in the Army during the Korean War.

The oldest brother volunteered for the Army in 1940. He later served with the US Air Force in the Panama Canal Zone, where he lived in a tent in the days before military bases were established. Many years later, Hannah accepted a job teaching in the Canal Zone after struggling to make a living teaching in North Carolina. He doubled his pay and improved living conditions and retirement benefits.

During the Vietnam War, the education system on the military bases in the Canal Zone flourished with 21 schools, 526 teachers and 11,000 students. Hannah worked as both a teacher and later an administrator before retiring and returning to the US.

The region was a far different environment from the farm in the mountains of Western North Carolina near Leicester where Hannah and his brothers grew up. They lived much like the Amish in a house without electricity, although they were fortunate to have running water piped down from a mountain into the house. The nearest telephone was seven miles away. The family only went to the country store once a month, when they stocked up with one gallon of kerosene, a big box of matches, soda, salt, sugar and baking powder.

The family grew everything else they needed to eat, butchering animals and making their own butter and flour from wheat raised on the land. His mother canned about 1,500 jars of produce every year. Hannah's parents bought the farm in 1919 and stayed until their deaths in 1972.

But they wanted life to be different for their sons. His father was also a teacher and both parents attended a teacher's training school that later became Western Carolina University. All the sons graduated from the same high school. Six of the boys, including Hannah, went to the same teacher's training school their parents attended. Two graduated and became teachers, two went four years and two attended less than a year.

Hannah based the decision to move to Dothan in 1978 on three factors:

1) Property taxes were lower than any other state.

2) Car insurance rates were lower than any other state.

3) Electricity rates were lower than any other state.

He also liked the fact that Dothan is a small Southern town where people are friendly. A strong agricultural base with large family estates and farms typically makes an area more economically stable, he added. A close-knit community of people who relocated to the region from the Panama Canal Zone was an added incentive.

Hannah and his wife Elizabeth devote much of their time to gardening, growing a lush profusion of flowers and vegetables at the house on Monte Carlo Street that he bought with his late wife of 50 years when they moved to Dothan.

Although Hannah enjoyed the years he lived in Panama, the experience made him appreciate life in the United States.

"I've lived around a Third World country most of my life, and those people's lives were rough. Most of them were illiterate, and they want to keep them that way because they can control them that way," he said.

Of the role he and his brothers played to protect the American way of life, Hannah said, "I feel like we did our share and more to contribute to democracy and the way of life in America."

Reprinted by permission of the Dothan Eagle. Features editor Linnea McClellan can be reached by email at lmcclellan@dothaneagle.com.

(The Panama News editor's note: US military bases were first established on the isthmus in 1904, but it is true that as Woirld War II approached and in its initial years, there wasn't enough housing for all the US Armed Forces personnel who were sent here. It should also be noted that Panama was one of the first Latin American countries to have a literate adult majority, although we won't dispute the assertion that parts of our political and economic elites promote and exploit ignorance.)

Also in this section:
Panama City's Christmas Parade
The kids of the Zonians who stayed
Zonian diaspora: Dothan, Alabama
Special account for Girl Scouts' new roof

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Dothan, Alabama attractive for CZ retirees