Inducted in 2009
Prep Teacher & Coach (1932-1973)
Father of a Prep Graduate

Induction Video

In the first years of the 1900s, Ignatz Hanish and Bertha Nagy emigrated from the old Austro-Hungarian Empire to the United States. They were married in November of 1906 came to settle first in the Yorkville section of Manhattan, eventually settling on Java Street in Brooklyn.  Two sons and a daughter were born to them: Joseph in 1907, Rudolph in 1909, and Bertha in 1911. 

In addition to the English of their new country, the blacksmith and the homemaker taught their children their native languages, Hungarian and German.  Of the three Hanish children, however, it was the middle boy, Rudy, who picked up German the most quickly, and, in fact, preferred it over the family's other tongues when speaking at home.

Without knowing it, Rudolph Hanish had put himself on a lifelong career path at a very young age.
 
Graduating St. Alphonsus Grammar School — today the Our Lady of Perpetual Help Academy — Rudy attended Xavier High School, graduating in 1927. From the beginning, Ignatz' son found the Jesuit style of education to his liking — and fittingly so:  Ignatz, of course, translates as Ignatius. He went on to receive his undergraduate degree from Fordham University, his master's from Columbia, and would complete additional coursework at City University.  In the decades that followed, he would continue his studies, both at home and abroad, attending periodic seminars at the University of Scranton and even spending a stint at the Goethe-Insitut in Munich sponsored by a Fulbright Grant. In fact, his time in Munich would be one of his three lengthy stays in Germany and Austria over the course of his years on the Prep Faculty.
 
Rudolph Hanish met his match in a Fraülein named Emma Nemesh. Among her other admirable qualities, Rudy would often quip, "Emma was willing to put up with his cigars," and so, they were married. They would have two children, Nancy and Edwin, and Emma would keep their family home in the Riverdale section of the Bronx filled with coziness, warmth, gentility, cheerfulness, peace and agreeableness — what the Germans call Gemütlichkeit.
 
“Herr Professor Hanish,” the title of love and respect that Rudy eventually acquired, joined the Fordham Prep faculty in 1932 and remained an active faculty member for more than forty years until his retirement in June 1973. He was part of a core of school legends who began their Prep tenures between 1920 and the early ’40s — a list of names that includes fellow Hall of Honor members James Melican, Harry McDonough, Albert Kirchner, Arthur Shea, SJ and Paul Carielli, longtime caretaker of Hughes Hall. These extraordinary men came together at just the right time in the Prep’s history. Together, they would take an institution that had been born in the 19th century as a college’s lower division and reforge it into a high school unto itself, with all that high school implies. The impact that Hanish and the others would have on the Prep down through the decades has earned them a chapter of their own in the official history of Fordham Prep, When September Comes. The chapter is aptly titled “A Golden Age of Prep Teachers.”
 
While Hanish taught a few other courses along the way, including English and upper level Greek courses, his hallmark was his precise and systematic instruction of German language and literature. He took his stumbling charges through the use of the umlaut and the mystery of deutsche Schrift, to the plays of Hugo von Hofmannsthal and the tales of Friedrich Gerstäcker, patiently enduring their frequent mangling of German pronunciation.
 
According to Stephen Dunne, ex '60: “With his humor and obvious love of teaching, we actually learned German — no small accomplishment. Many years later, in Munich, the German that Mr. Hanish had taught us allowed me to make my way in that city with a minimum of difficulty.”
 
And in the words of another former student, “Herr Professor Hanish struggled to get us boys to pronounce German properly while reading Das geheimnisvolle Dorf. This could be quite comical at times, but more often than not he succeeded, culminating each year in a beautiful concert of German Christmas carols sung in the Prep halls.”
 
In fact, for many a student (or Faculty or Staff member for that matter) whose Prep years were during Rudy’s tenure, those performances of the German Choir were always a highlight in the cold, dark days of December. No Christmas on Campus was complete without the German Club's Choir making its rounds of Rose Hill with a repertoire ranging from Stille Nacht to Rudolph das kleine Rentier.  
 
Of course, while Hanish’s German classes and his German Club and Choir were theoretically separate, sometimes the line between the curricular and the co-curricular became just a little bit verschwommen — all by Rudy’s design, of course. According to Patrick Swift Class of 1962, because he took German, membership in the Choir was automatic, even though he could — in his own words — “barely carry a tune.” Be that as it may, Swift’s recollections nostalgically continue: “We would traverse the campus in the week before Christmas, performing for the University president, the Prep principal, and in a few other places. After each performance, we were thanked in German in a short speech by Mr. Hanish — always heartfelt and always memorable.” Despite Swift’s estimation of his own musical abilities, there has never been a recount of those performances that has not looked back on them fondly.
 
It was Weiße Weihnachten that left the greatest impression on Michael Tully, Class of 1958: “Rudy Hanish was a man of faith who translated ‘White Christmas’ in straightforward manner — except for the last line, which he changed to ‘Bleib das milde Christkind bei Dir; Segn uns Jesu immer beten wir’  (May the dear Christ child rest with you; Bless us, Jesus, always, we pray).  Every year at Christmas I sing this — at home, parties, wherever — in his loving memory.”

Beyond the classroom and the German Choir, Rudy was for many years the junior varsity football coach. Students who played for Hanish would remember their coach for his kindness, his clarity of direction and his practical straightforwardness. As was written by a Prepster of yesteryear, with Coach Hanish, there was “no show.”
 
“He was always supportive of all Prep activities and events,” noted Adolph Ehbrecht, Class of 1951. “Impressed by his dedicated teaching," he continued, "my German-born mother later contributed to the construction of the Modern Language Center in the 'New Prep Building' to be named in his honor" — certainly a fitting tribute for one of the first recipients of the Prep’s Distinguished Teacher Award.
 
While his students always knew that they entered Hanish's classes for serious instruction, they quickly learned that under his rather austere outer shell lurked a wry sense of humor that would surface at least a few times during each class period. When Rudy’s son Edwin came to the Prep and decided to select German as his modern language — a decision which surprised no one — the big question among the students was how Rudy would address his own son in class — by his last name, as was his custom in the classroom, by his first name, Edwin, or would he simply point at him? They failed to account for Rudy’s sense of humor. Edwin was called puer, Latin for boy or son.

Edwin graduated with the Class of 1951.
 
As is often the case, Rudy’s determined and businesslike exterior masked a gentle interior. He loved his wife and family; he loved his profession; he loved his students; and he loved Fordham Prep.

Rudolph Louis Hanish passed away in 1978. The inscription on his gravestone, at his own request, reads “Beloved father, loving husband, dedicated teacher."