Alan Hershey
(June 13, 1917 – February 27, 1999)
Alan U. Hershey was a Los Angeles fan, a member of LASFS from the 1940s at least through the ’70s. He was a founding member of the Outlanders, and an editor of their clubzine, The Outlander, as well as Shangri-LA.
He grew up in the Bronx and married Outlander Freddie Hershey in 1941 in New Jersey. He helped her chair Westercon 3. While there’s no mention of their breakup in the fanzine, they were amicably divorced by 1951, and remained lifelong friends.
He served in the Army in 1942. In late 1943, he was shipped to the Manhattan Project as a radiochemistry specialist. He worked several assignments on different aspects of the "gadget," and witnessed the Trinity test. By the end of his service he was assigned to put together official historical documentation for the whole project. (He wrote about his experience in LASFS's Shangri-LA in 1949.)
Alan moved to the Los Angeles area in the 1940s. In The Outlander 7 (June 1951), he wrote:
I am seeing a good deal of a Scottish girl, Mary Gibson, who is staying with the Ackermans for a couple of months. The situation appears to be fairly serious, and I have taken steps to find out about going to a Scottish university this summer on the GI Bill.
They married in 1952, and briefly lived in Scotland. By late 1952, they were back in California, where they had five children between 1952 and 1963. One of them, Allison Hershey became a long-time fan.
Photo in LASFS Album.
- The Outlander [1949] (one issue)
- Shangri L'Affairs
| Person | 1917—1999 |
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