Dr. Daniel Dwight Hankey

Dr. Daniel Dwight Hankey was born June 7, 1924 in Council Bluffs, Iowa, to Dr. Daniel C. Hankey and Minnie Rose Hanisch Hankey. He attended grade school and high school in Council Bluffs and began college at Iowa State College in pre-med in 1941. In 1943, he was inducted into the U.S. Navy as an Apprentice Seaman and was stationed at Great Lakes Naval Training Station. In 1944, he was transferred to Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, where he graduated in 1947 as a medical doctor.

In July of 1947, he began an internship on the Harvard Service at Boston City Hospital where he met his lifelong friend, Dr. Linton Bishop, who convinced him to come to Atlanta. After one year, they both began the resident program at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta where Dan became chief resident in 1950-51. He met Lillian Winship, who worked in a lab at Emory University, and they married in June of 1950, at the First Methodist Church Atlanta.

In 1951, Dr. Hankey entered the Army as a First Lieutenant at Ft. Benning, Georgia. There he specialized in treating returning veterans from the Korean War with a form of malaria unresponsive to traditional medicines. He was instrumental in the development of a treatment specific to this new form and travelled to other Army bases to lecture on its use.

Lillian and Dan had four children, two while at Fort Benning, and two after they returned to Atlanta, where he practiced Internal Medicine from 1953 until his retirement in 1980.

Dr. Hankey’s three recreational passions in life were golf, fishing, and bridge. He was club champion in Council Bluffs at age 16 and over his lifetime amassed ten holes-in-one. He was a member of Capital City Club, Cherokee Country Club, Peachtree Golf Club, and was a founding member of Atlanta Country Club. Although Lillian was the better angler, he enjoyed fishing with her at the beloved family house at Tate Mountain Estates as well as on annual fishing trips to Canada and Florida. He and Lil partnered in bridge throughout their 59 years of marriage playing competitively early on and with friends and family in later years.

In addition to touching many lives through his medical practice, Dr. Hankey’s business acumen was widely recognized and he served on the board of directors of many organizations including Fulton Supply Company, Shoney’s South, National Bank of Georgia, and MAG Mutual Medical Insurance Company. He was president of the Georgia Arthritis Foundation, and also served on the board of trustees of Young Harris College where he received an honorary doctorate.

Undoubtedly his largest life contribution was his association with and support of the World Methodist Evangelism Institute (WMEI). Since its establishment in 1982, WMEI has held seminars in every corner of the world, working with clergy and lay leaders, promoting evangelism “so the world may know Jesus Christ.” Through the years, he attended sixty seminars worldwide. Countless lives have been transformed, church leaders empowered, friendships and collaborations formed – all in an effort to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ.

Dr. Hankey was a Professor Emeritus of medicine at Emory University. He and his wife Lillian were active members of Northside United Methodist Church for over fifty years. In 2005, Dan and Lil established the Daniel and Lillian Hankey Chair in World Evangelism at Candler School making it the only divinity school in America with multiple chairs in evangelism.

He was predeceased by his wife Lillian and by his sister, Evelyn Hankey Wilson. He is survived by his children Nell Winship Hankey, Daniel Clyde Hankey and his wife Jordan Rhodes Hankey, Evelyn Hankey MacKenzie and her husband Douglas Allaby MacKenzie, and Charles Winship Hankey and his wife Leslie Gardner Hankey. He had seven grandchildren including David Alexander, David Allaby MacKenzie, Daniel Wilson MacKenzie, Andrew William MacKenzie, April Hankey Norton, Charles Winship Hankey, Jr. and Leslie Ord Hankey as well as five great grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held at Northside United Methodist Church on Tuesday September 29, at 11 o'clock. There will be visitation on Monday September 28, from 3 until 5 o'clock at H. M. Patterson & Son-Spring Hill Chapel, at 1020 Spring Street NW.

Donations may be made to the World Methodist Evangelism Institute, Candler School of Theology, Emory University, 1531 Dickey Drive, Atlanta, GA 30322, www.wmei.ws