Life Beyond Limits Endowment Fund in memory of Yvonne Hansen
This fund, started on Yvonne Hansen’s birthday, June 1, 2021, by FOY (Friends of Yvonne from MHS Class of ‘77), provides annual grants in memory of Yvonne, to Camp Big Sky. Located in Farmington, IL, Camp Big Sky was founded in May 2000 for the purpose of providing education, training and skills development to accessible outdoor activities for children and adults with disabilities and their families, friends, and caregivers at no charge.
Specifically, the purpose of the fund is to make annual contributions to Camp Big Sky to assist with maintaining and expanding “Accessing the Outdoors” activities for those with disabilities and/or defraying the costs for improvements, upkeep, and maintenance of facilities needed for the “Accessing Outdoors” program at Camp Big Sky.
Born in Aurora, IL, on June 1, 1959, Yvonne L. Hansen grew up enjoying the benefits of a mostly typical Midwest childhood. Her parents, Russell and Verniece Hansen, provided ample opportunity for Yvonne and her older sister, Celeste, to see and experience many places of interest. As an employee of Caterpillar Inc., her father accepted an overseas assignment in Brussels, Belgium, from 1967 to 1970. This allowed her family to travel extensively throughout Europe during those years resulting in many lasting memories that Yvonne would fondly recall in her later years.
Upon returning to the United States, her family relocated to central Illinois, where she was a 1977 graduate of Morton High School and a 1981 graduate of Illinois State University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Interior Design. After college graduation she moved to Dallas, TX, where she worked in interior design sales, and later upon passing her broker's license, worked as a sales assistant for First Boston Corporation. By all accounts, it appeared that Yvonne was on her way to a successful career and enjoying an active lifestyle.
That all changed in February of 1987. At the age of 27, while on a ski vacation in Colorado, she suffered a brain stem stroke, resulting in locked-in-syndrome and quadriplegia. After months of hospitalization and countless hours of physical therapy, Yvonne was able to regain the ability to communicate with others with the aid of a computer and Bluetooth device attached to a facial muscle. Through the movement of her eyes, she was able to “type” letters one at a time until a word or sentence was completed. Despite her prognosis as a non-verbal, quadriplegic, this newly learned technique allowed her to publish a book entitled, "The Silent One."
For daily interaction with others, she used her eyes to communicate: up for “yes”, down for “no”. To allow others to converse with her, a technique was used whereby the alphabet was divided into a quadrant on a writing pad. For starters, each one of the numbered quadrants would be called out and then stopping at whichever one Yvonne selected by raising her eyes. This was followed by a similar step where each of the letters within that selected quadrant were read until Yvonne raised her eyes again to note the selected letter. This repetitious process allowed Yvonne to make a comment or ask a question; one letter at a time, one word at a time, and sentence by sentence.
After living the latter 34 years of life with her disabilities, Yvonne passed away on November 21, 2020, at the age of 61, having lived well beyond the typical life expectancy for an individual in her condition. Her parents preceded her in death and she is survived by her sister, Celeste.
In spite of enduring the majority of her life with severe physical limitations, it didn’t keep Yvonne from living life to the fullest extent possible. Along the way, she inspired others. Not only friends and family, but also the many caregivers and medical staff that attended to her physical needs. She enjoyed attending community outings, going to movies and museums, listening to music and audio books, playing Scrabble with Celeste, and most of all, visits from friends. Over the years, Yvonne remained in active contact with numerous former college and high school friends, co-workers, neighbors and caregivers.
One particular group of friends from Yvonne’s high school remained in contact with her by scheduling regular visits and outings. They became known as FOY (Friends of Yvonne). With a desire to keep the memory of Yvonne alive for years to come and commemorate a lifestyle of overcoming challenges while inspiring others, they chose to establish an endowment fund to assist with funding the “Accessing the Outdoors” activities and facility needs at Camp Big Sky.
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Checks can be made out to MCF, with the words “Life Beyond Limits” written in the Memo line. Mail to: Morton Community Foundation, 135 S First Ave, Morton, IL. 61550, or make a donation online by clicking the button below. Online donations require a 3% processing fee which you can choose to either pay or have it deducted from your donation amount.