Edward Reginald Hodgson

Edward (Prince) and two of his brothers fought in the Civil War for the Confederacy. They served in Lumpkins Battery, a local militia (Click here for part of diary believed to have been kept by either  Robert or William). After the war Edward and the family went on to become leading citizens of Athens. The Hodgsons founded a number of successful businesses including stage coach, warehouses, chemicals, oil, cotton seed, and fertilizer. They also were instrumental in the development of the University of Georgia where several buildings are named after the family. One cousin by marriage (Nell Hodgson's husband Bob Woodruff) ran the Coca-Cola company.

EDWARD REGINALD HODGSON and MARY VIRGINIA STRAHAN were married in the city of Baltimore, Maryland on January 3, 1870. There were nine children from this marriage:

Edward Reginald (Ned) Hodgson Jr. Harry Hodgson
Mary Virginia Hodgson (May)
Frederick Grady (Fritz) Hodgson
Nannette Hodgson
Walter Blanchard Hodgson
Morton Strahan Hodgson
Nell Kendall Hodgson
Dorothy Charleton Hodgson

Edward "Ned" Hodgson (1871-1967) married Mary McCullough, The family lived first on Harris Street and later at 1001 Prince Avenue (the street was named after his father, Edward [Prince] Hodgson). Later the family moved to 150 Milledge Avenue (which they later sold to the Alpha Delta Pi sorority). They also built a summer home they called Tanglewood on a mountain top near Hendersonville, North Carolina. After the WWII they sold Tanglewood and family vacations were then spent at Kanuga, also near Hendersonville.

The civic affairs of Ned Hodgson included as trustee of Georgia Tech, director of Southern Mutual Life Insurance Company, and president of the Athens YMCA. In later years he served as a director for the Jackson County REA. Ned's wife Mary (a teacher by training) served on the board of directors of the Athen's Tuberculosis Hospital, organized the first P.T.A., taught Sunday school, was an advisor to a group of college students, and was active in the Ladies Garden Club. Mary was also one of the first women golfers in Athens.

Ned's and Mary's son John McCullough Hodgson graduated from University of Georgia. He married Brita Aspegren in 1932 and moved to Salt Lake City. He had learned to fly in the late 1920s and he had gotten a job flying the early mail shuttle from Cheyenne to Salt Lake (At $50 a week and 14 cents a mile). His young bride, Brita Aspegren, finding herself pregnant shortly after settling into their new home, drove back home cross country by herself at eight months pregnant to deliver her first born in the comfort of her family. Unfortunately, the day before she delivered her daughter Inga, one of the worst hurricanes of the century struck the coast of Virginia. She ended up being rowed across the swollen river to the hospital to deliver her child.

Several months later she packed up the car and drove back across country to rejoin her husband. The mail plane John was flying was a double cockpit, open air bi-plane. For a time he was stationed in Cheyenne and he would occasionally fly his wife and infant daughter over the mountains to spend the weekend with him in Cheyenne.

In 1937 he joined United Airlines and the family moved to Oakland, California. In 1943 when the U.S. entered WWII he headed moved the family to Seattle where he headed up United's military transport operations out of Alaska. After the war he took a leave of absence from United to help get the Philippine Air Lines Inter-island Division off the ground. He moved to the Philippines and after getting established moved his family over. They moved back to Seattle and he returned to United in 1949. He rose to the position of vice president of communications in 1960.

John was an avid and accomplished spring board diver, skier, and horseman all his life. He was a Southeast Conference diving champion while at University of Georgia and, while living in Denver in the 1950s, he helped found the Crestmoor Swimming Club. He built a cabin they called Tomtebo (Home of the tomtes, a Swedish fairy/elf) in Breckenridge, Colorado in the 1960s to give the family a place to go skiing.

John retired in 1970 and moved to Virginia Beach. There he devoted his time to civic affairs and gardening. He served as president of a local chapter of the Virginia Native Plants Society, the Virginia Symphony and the Princess Anne-Virginia Beach Historical Society. He is buried, along with the rest of the Hodgsons, at the Oconee Hill Cemetery in Athens.

John's daughter Inga, who married Doug McKinnon, attended Stanford and University of Colorado. She acted in community theatre productions for several years and volunteered on the local arts council. Later in life she graduated from the Culinary Institute of the America and has gone on to manage numerous bed and breakfasts, food operations at several country clubs, and more recently a sorority house.

The Hodgson family history is well documented in Hugh Gordon's booklet The Family of Edward Reginald Hodgson and Mary Virginia Strahan and in another booklet entitled Three Biographies.  If there are any questions about the information contained in this account, please email me -- Chris McKinnon