The home of George and Ida Hanna still stands at 607 E. Front Street, a distinctive home of stone and shingle. George Hanna was born in 1849, the son of a prominent attorney in Bloomington. He received his education in the University High School. In 1869, at the age of just twenty, Hanna travelled to France during the Franco Prussian War with A E Washburne, the American Ambassador. He was conversant in several languages and was much in demand at the time of that conflict. Later he pursued further studies in Heidelberg, Germany. In Illinois and Kansas he invested in land and raised shorthorn cattle and imported horses.
Ida Spence was the daughter of John Spence, an immigrant to Bloomington from Ohio in his childhood. He worked at many occupations including the boot and shoe business, medicine and law. These old settlers seemed to slip so easily between careers, changing medicine for law at the drop of a hat. John Spence died at the age of 64, but he had 4 distinct career paths during his lifetime. After entering the law, Spence took his family north to Wisconsin. Ida was married to George Hanna in Wisconsin, when Hanna was 55 and Ida was 32. Before Ida was married she worked for her own living, as the cashier and book keeper for Bruce and Brown's candy store. Although she was of child bearing age, the couple never had children and when Ida was widowed in 1920, she was left with many investments made by George Hanna and continued to live in the house on Front Street. One investment they had was land in Kansas, and when oil was found on the land of a neighbor, rumors were rife in Bloomington that Ida Hanna had struck oil in Kansas, but she was firm in denying such rumors.