About the Hakanens

Mimi Roberts and Wes Hakanen met while attending Indiana State College in Indiana Pennsylvania.  They were Art Education Majors.  Mimi, whose proper maiden name was, Marian Cathryn Roberts is a graduate of Leechburg (PA) High School class of 1955.  Wes, whose proper name is Wesley Edwin Hakanen, graduated from Turtle Creek (PA) High School in 1951.  They both entered Indiana State College in the Fall of 1955. They married in 1959, at the start of their senior year.  After graduation they acquired teaching positions in the Punxsutawney Public Schools.  They spent the next three years in Punxsutawney (PA) where their first son, Chriss, was born February 22, 1961.  Wes took a teaching job with the Gateway Public School System, Monroeville (PA), in the Fall of 1962.  The family moved to Penn Hills (PA), a suburb of Pittsburgh, adjacent to the Borough of Monroeville. In 1965 Wes took an administrative position with Penn State University's Continuing Education Services.  That job took the family to Uniontown (PA). Their second son, Evan, was born March 23, 1966, shortly after they moved to Uniontown.  Their third son, Eran, was also born in Uniontown, July 7, 1969.  Shortly after Eran was born, the family moved back to Penn Hills.  In 1972 they moved to Trafford (PA), where they spent the next fifteen years, before moving to their present home in Edinboro (PA).

In 1988 the Hakanen's middle son, Evan married his high school sweetheart, Teresa Maleski.  The marriage lasted only five years. They were divorced in 1993.  Then in 1995 their oldest son married Dolly Hsu, a divorcee with a beautiful seven year-old daughter, Freda.  They have blessed Wes and Mimi with three additional grandchildren, Chriss Wesley II, born in 1996, Billy, born in 1997 and Denny, born in 2001.

Then on June 2, 2001 Wes and Mimi's youngest son, Eran, married Peiyu Lan and the couple blessed them with another grandson, Wesley Tai, November 5, 2003 and a granddaughter, Marcella Rae, June 1, 2005!  Dolly and Peiyu were born and raised in Taiwan, a fact that adds another challenging dimension to the Hakanen's research.

As mentioned, this is a "work-in-progress" and things change. We have just recently learned that Chriss and Dolly are going through difficult times in their relationship.  All Wes and Mimi find they can do is pray for God's positive influence and guidance.  We love our daughter-in-law and son very much and hope they can reach some mutual understanding.

The Hakanen's continue to enjoy their role as grandparents and hope that all their grandkids will someday value the information they have gathered. You can see what we have gathered so far by clicking Our Genealogy.