Even in retirement, the country’s longest-serving master of foxhounds retains a fervent commitment to the sporting lifestyle and an enduring passion for open land. Though the grande dame of foxhunting now follows her pack in a Jeep rather than atop a hunter, her joie de vivre is unmistakable. After 58 years as the sole leader of Pennsylvania’s Mr. Stewart’s Cheshire Foxhounds—from 1945 to 2003—Nancy Penn Smith Hannum recalls her lifetime love affair with horses and hounds—a relationship she refers to as simply her “reason for being.”