In 1939 he was married to Helen Rivedal and had five children with her before she died in 1972. He later married Ethel Welch in 1979.
Henry Hansen began teaching at Oregon State University in 1939 as an instructor. His research continued throughout his time there, including the collection and analysis of over 50 palynological records for the Pacific Northwest. One of his seminal publications was Postglacial Forest Succession, Climate, and Chronology in the Pacific Northwest, published in 1947. This work was all the more impressive given that chronologies at the time lacked stable age-depth controls later afforded by C dating.
