Honey Hansen Denker, Travel Agent, Self-Proclaimed `Gal Who's Been There'

Honey Hansen Denker's travel clients were willing to follow her just about anywhere. Even when they didn't know the final destination.

The Honey Hansen Travel agency slogan was, ``Ask the gal who's been there.''

But consider this for blind trust:

``Back when $5,000 was a lot of money,'' recalled her husband, Les Denker, ``she established what was called a `mystery tour.' Nobody knew where they were going.'' Participants would guess one destination, only to learn it was somewhere quite different.

``People had sufficient faith in her ability that they were willing to trust her,'' Les Denker said.

Honey Hansen Denker, a woman who saw most of the world and used a sense of humor in guiding others' discovery of it, died Sunday.

Mrs. Denker's family moved to Seattle from Bismarck, N.D., when she was young. She graduated from Queen Anne High School and attended the University of Washington, after which she joined the Northland Transportation Co., which ran a small passenger-ship line between Seattle and Alaska.

``I was transferred up here with Texaco from California in 1934,'' Les Denker said. ``It just so happened that the company found an apartment for me, and the apartment was next to hers when she lived with her parents. Her mother and my mother got together,'' and not long after, Les and Honey Hansen were married.

``She started with a clerical position with this small company and through her abilities became recognized as the only woman general-passenger agent in the industry,'' her husband said.

When the ship line was absorbed by a larger firm, the Alaska Steamship Co., Mrs. Denker decided to start her own travel agency in the Skinner Building in downtown Seattle.

Honey Hansen Travel grew in reputation but not greatly in size, Les Denker said, because his wife wanted to be able to stay involved in leading trips and working closely with clients.

But she was very influential throughout the travel industry and ``more or less was the founder of the American Society of Travel Agents,'' he said.

Mrs. Denker wrote a travel column for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer for several years.

``She was concerned that they would edit them, but they never changed a word,'' Les Denker said. ``She wasn't sure they would go along with her sense of humor, but they did.''

Her sense of humor and assertiveness converged on one trip, during which she was seated next to a Catholic cardinal who inquired as to her religion, her husband recalls.

``The cardinal asked if she was of the Catholic faith,'' he said. ``She said no, but she noted that while the cardinal was in the business of sending people to heaven, she too sent people to distant points.''

Besides her husband, Mrs. Denker is survived by a brother, Robert Elder of Culver City, Calif. She was preceded in death by a son, Robert Denker.

No service is planned, and the family suggests remembrances to Medic One.