Arthur Oscar Atwood Hodge

Arthur Oscar Atwood Hodge, son of Arthur Judson Hodge and Jennie Esther Atwood, was born 25 January 1905 in Pasadena, Los Angeles County, CA. His parents tended to call him Artie. Of four children, he was the only boy, and his names were all meant to acknowledge his forebears. The names Arthur and Atwood obviously were in honor of his parents. The name Oscar came from Oscar Clark Hathaway, husband of his great aunt Mary Jane Hodge. Oscar and Mary Jane had had a formative influence on Arthur Judson Hodge in his early childhood, while he was a member of their household.

Artie spent his early childhood in Pasadena, with his slightly older sister Esther as one of his regular companions and playmates. He was not until he was eight years old that the family expanded with the births of his twin sisters Marian and Alice. During this early part of his life, his parents and siblings lived in what was actually the home of his maternal grandmother, Mary Ann Hall Atwood.

In 1915, when Artie was ten, Pasadena was left behind. This was a watershed moment. Both the Hodge and Atwood sides of the family had come to Pasadena in 1887 and had been an integral part of that city’s social, academic, and economic scene for decades. But A.J. Hodge wanted to do new things careerwise, and both he and Jennie liked the idea of living nearer to the coast. Over the next two years, they and their kids were in transition. While A.J. worked for a kelp processor, the family lived on a boat in San Pedro Harbor/Long Beach. Soon A.J. began working for Union Tool (later to become National Supply Company), whose plant was located in Torrance. The family spent a short interval living in Torrance, then in 1917, A.J. and Jennie purchased a three-acre parcel in Lomita along Pacific Coast Highway. The property already possessed a good house, which was to be A.J. and Jennie’s home for the rest of their days. The family quickly began developing the rest into a personal paradise. Much of the parcel was turned into a mini-farm, with orchards, vegetable patches, corn fields, banana trees, and animal pens for turkeys, chickens, and pigs. In addition to the main house there were a number of other structures, including a tractor shed and a windmill, as well as “urban” amenities such as a tennis court. Eventually a botanical garden and ornamental pool would be added, and ultimately a pottery workshop and retail shop selling pottery and garden sculpture. The Hodge estate became a popular place for friends and neighbors to drop by on evenings and weekends, to lounge in the wading pool, play tennis, and enjoy the beautiful surroundings. And of course, the fact that the beach was so near was also a big attraction.

Luxurious and picturesque though his home might have been, Artie’s daily environment as a teenager was somewhat the opposite, as many of his classmates at San Pedro High School were the sons of longshoremen. Artie -- we’ll refer to him as Arthur from here on out -- embraced the peer pressure and testosterone-charged milieu by becoming an athlete and man’s man. As the son of an inventor and industrial-design genius, it was only natural that he study engineering once he got to collge, but even then sports and athletic competition were at the forefront of his thoughts. While spending his first two college years at UCLA -- in those days, it was called the University of California’s Southern Campus, because in that era the Berkeley campus was still regarded as “the” University of California -- Arthur joined the wrestling team at Southern Campus. He also played on the baseball team during the 1923-24 academic year.

His time in college would cement a deep friendship between Arthur and another athlete and engineering major, Glenn H. Berry. Both encouraged one another’s endeavors, avoiding direct rivalry thanks to Arthur concentrating on wrestling while Glenn focussed on gymnastics. This is not to say they didn’t dabble in one another’s arenas. For instance, in the photo at right, Arthur is the “thrower” and spotter while Glenn performs a flip. Both Arthur and Glenn were members of the Delta Rho Omega fraternity -- and yes, they indulged in their share of frat-boy shenanigans.

Arthur spent his third and fourth academic years at UC Berkeley. Also, during the summer of 1926, he spent an interval at Fort Lewis, WA in Tacoma to participate in ordnance training as part of the ROTC, but that proved to be as far as his military inclinations went. He graduated from Berkeley with degrees in both mechanical and electrical engineering. When he returned to southern California, he was poised to put his education to use, and took initial steps in that regard, but he had a couple of sideline things to get out of the way. One was something of a lark -- acting. He was cast as an extra in the Hollywood musical The Drop Kick starring Richard Barthelmess and Barbara Kent, a silent-film release of 1927. The movie is now available on DVD, and if you obtain a copy and watch it, you might spot Arthur right behind the two leads in a ballroom dance scene -- assuming you press PAUSE at just the right moment. (See the image at the end of this biography.) His other “do it while young” ambition was more personal and represented the culimination of years of effort. He was so much of an athlete that he had a realistic chance of qualifying for the 1928 Olympics in wrestling. So Arthur resumed living with his parents and devoted as much time as possible to his training, as did his buddy Glenn Berry, who had the same dream as a gymnast.

Glenn Berry did in fact reach the milestone, and was a participant in the Games in Amsterdam. He placed far below the top contenders, but no one else coming out of the U.C. gymnastics programs had ever done as well before. His accomplishment made it clear to the world that U.C. was properly developing talent, and would beome a force to consider in the future. By the time of the 1984 games, when the American teams did so well in the Games and analysts were looking back at the development of U.S. gymnastics, Glenn would be described as having been “California’s first great gymnast.” His coaching was instrumental in helping his protégé, Eddie Gross, to win a silver medal at the 1932 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. In 1995, shortly before his death, Glenn was inducted into the California Athletic Hall of Fame.

Arthur’s own hope of making the Olympics was a case of “so near and yet so far.” He made it to the final round in the trials. If he had overcome one last opponent, he would have been on the team heading to Amsterdam. As it was, he had to be content with cheering his buddy on.

With the Olympics over, Arthur scaled back his athletic regimen to a level that would fit into “normal life.” He moved out of his parents’ home and began sharing a residence with Glenn in Los Angeles, part of a transition into his adult, post-college existence. Both men must have been keenly aware that the ’32 Games would be practically in their back yard and both must have itched to be part of it, but they knew their time had come and gone -- though Glenn would stay involved as a coach, and help up-and-comers such as Eddie Gross to develop their skills. Glenn’s day job was school teacher. Arthur decided to imitate his father and try to use his aptitude for engineering to become an entrepreneur. His father’s last great venture before settling in as an employee at Union Tool/National Supply had been the company called Reliance Gas Regulator and Machine Company. Arthur decided he would found a new company, and with the right combination of inventiveness, engineering skill, and luck, would be able to develop a product as market-worthy as the gas regulator his father had come up with. He called his enterprise Reliance Engineering and Development Company, a name inspired by the former one, but not identical -- an identical name would have been a problem inasmuch as the original company still existed, albeit owned by others.

Given his interests, Arthur’s time away from job and home was naturally spent engaged in an active lifestyle. He wrestled in the Amateur Athletic Union in the early 1930s. He was a member of the Los Angeles Athletic Club. He would continue to play on a community baseball team until at least the late 1930s. He even took ballet and dancing. When not personally exercising, he was a sports spectator. His social crowd was made up of individuals with similar interests -- Glenn of course being a regular companion. A favorite hangout was the Culver City Kennel Club, a lure not only for the excitement of its greyhound races but the social aspects of the clubhouse. (This was still the Prohibition Era. Given the lack of easy access to alcohol, clubs of one sort or another played a much larger role than is easy to imagine today.)

It was in 1930, while visiting Catalina Island, that Arthur met the woman who was to become his lifemate. She was Corrie Sue Tadlock, daughter of the late James Caldwell Tadlock and Alma Teresa Corrie. Born 29 September 1901 in Charlotte, Mecklenburg County, NC, Corrie had spent her early childhood in Georgia and the Carolinas before coming out to southern California, where her mother had gone on to finish raising her and her younger sister Louise as a single parent. Arthur and Corrie did not become an item at once, or at least, not exclusively so. Corrie may have found it something of a challenge to lure Arthur away from his bachelor lifestyle. She herself had led a full life as a single woman. Her first marriage to Arthur Earnest Windmueller had come and gone quickly in the early 1920s. After that, she had long been the friend and companion of David Otto Brant (1889-1974), a grandson of the founder of Title Insurance and Trust. But Dave was unable to marry her because his strict Catholic family would not let him contemplate marriage to a divorcée, and Corrie eventually had to do right by herself. It was easy to understand why Arthur was the one she chose to help her move on with her life. Arthur was physically fit, well-educated, came from a financially comfortable clan (always a consideration in an era when so many people were going through economic hardships), and was a fixture of southern California’s industrialist socialite set. The wedding took place 28 June 1935 in Santa Ana, Orange County, CA. Arthur was thirty years old, Corrie thirty-four.

Arthur had given a shot at being his own businessman, and would continue to own Reliance Engineering and Development Company to his dying day, but with a wife and impending family to consider, he was obliged to hold down a wage-earning job. That position happened to be with National Supply Company. He was not the only member of the Hodge clan of his generation to do so; his brother-in-law Harold Carpenter, husband of Marian Hodge, was also employed there. Meanwhile Corrie, who had worked as a stenographer while single, continued in that profession while waiting to become a mother.

Both Arthur and Corrie wanted children right away, even as they began their lives together in a rental in Hermosa Beach, Los Angeles County, CA. Given that Corrie was entering her mid-thirties, the newlyweds were under a certain amount of pressure to become parents quickly or not at all. To their distress, the first two pregnancies ended early in miscarriages. Fortunately the next one went well. The couple ultimately had two daughters, both born in the latter 1930s. Between the two births, the family moved into a house at 401 Longfellow Avenue in Hermosa Beach.

The couple and their little ones, along with their young Mexican nanny, Henrietta, had moved on to 433 Morningside by the time the news came of the attack on Pearl Harbor. The entry of the U.S. altered the whole cultural landscape the family was part of, as industrial L.A. converted to war support, and blackouts were declared out of fear of Japanese submarines and aircraft attacking the coast. Because Arthur was in engineering management at National Supply, there was no risk of him being required to become a soldier. As the company shifted to producing military equipment, Arthur was categorized as one of those American men whose presence at his stateside job was vital to the war effort.

Among the products National Supply made, whether in wartime or peacetime, were parts for oil drilling equipment. Arthur gained such a degree of expertise in this area that in 1945, he was given an attractive job offer and became employed by Loffland Brothers Drilling Company. Unfortunately, this meant a relocation to Bakersfield, Kern County, CA. The community would be the family’s main place of residence for the next twelve to thirteen years. (By coincidence, Bakersfield is where Corrie’s ex-husband Arthur Windmueller had moved many years before, and where he would go on to spend the rest of his life. As far as is known, he was not again a part of Corrie’s day-to-day existence in any way. By contrast, former beau Dave Brant did keep in touch, if at a distance. He sent her kids birthday gifts when they were young. Much later, Dave set up a trust fund for Corrie herself.)

The relocation meant that Arthur and Corrie’s two daughters would spend the majority of their school years, and all of their high school years, at Bakersfield educational institutions. This was something of a culture shock, as Hermosa Beach had been filled with largely white and largely prosperous families. Many families in the Bakersfield area were in an entirely different set of circumstances. Not only were there black and Mexican residents, but in the previous fifteen years, Bakersfield and the southern San Joaquin Valley had received more of the refugees from Oklahoma uprooted by the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl than any other spot in the nation. The girls’ classmates were a “Technicolor” group as Corrie later described it.

Arthur and Corrie’s home in Bakersfield did have its appealing aspects. The back yard was ample with plenty of room for vegetable gardening. There was also space for pet ducks. For nearly the entire span of the family’s presence in the town, a male duck named Quackie was the ruler of the yard, even to the extent of chasing after Corrie and nipping at her ankles when she went out to hang the wash from the clotheslines. (He behaved himself better with other members of the family, perhaps sensing that they were not intimidated by him.) He was kept company by a mate, though the original female died after a number of years and was replaced by another. Several broods of ducklings came and went.

During the late 1940s, as Corrie’s mother was approaching her seventies and needed to scale back her lifestyle, she sold her “spare” Hermosa Beach parcel to Arthur and Corrie. The property, only a block from the beach, became the Promised Land of Arthur and Corrie’s existence, the place where they imagined they would build their final home and spend their retirement years, an echo of the situation enjoyed by Arthur’s parents. The land was large enough for two structures, so the front half was designated as the site where the main house would ultimately be erected. Meanwhile the back half was not allowed to go to waste. In 1953, a duplex was erected there. Half of it was rented out. The other half became the family’s vacation quarters, a very popular venue for the beach-loving clan, and a much-loved break from the dismal environment of Bakersfield, which some -- including quite a few of its residents -- have labelled the sweaty armpit of California.

Other getaways for Arthur included his fishing trips. He had an abiding love of deep-sea sports fishing, and belonged to the Balboa Pavillion Sportsfishing Club. He went on excursions that would sometimes last two or three days.

Arthur was sometimes sent far afield on behalf of Loffland Brothers, including a stint at a drilling site in Mercury, Nye County, NV. His experience as a teenager with the sons of Long Beach longshoremen made it easy for him to get along with the tough oil riggers who worked there. Finally in the late 1950s, the need for him to be here, there, and everywhere prompted Loffland Brothers to ask him to relocate to their plant in Tulsa, OK. With the girls now old enough to head out on their own, Arthur and Corrie agreed to do so.

If Bakersfield had been a big adjustment away from the beaches of southern California, Tulsa was even more so. He and Corrie managed it, however, in part because even though they were obliged to live there for a period of years, there were plenty of breaks. Not only were there opportunities to visit the duplex in Hermosa Beach, but Arthur’s responsibilities with the company caused him to travel to various oil-producing nations around the world, including Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and other Middle Eastern, European, and South American countries.

Finally retirement arrived. The Hodges returned to Hermosa Beach for good. Enough time had gone by, though, that the ambitious plans to build a main house seemed too much like the dreams of their younger selves, and they contented themselves with the duplex.

Arthur made it into his late seventies, passing away 8 October 1981 in Hermosa Beach. By the standards of the Martin/Strader clan, this was a relatively short span. The shortfall can perhaps be attributed to his affection for alcohol. Even so, it was a life long enough that he survived his younger daughter, who died unexpectedly at age twenty-nine in 1968. In the early 1970s, the deceased’s widower and her sister became husband and wife, at which point Arthur’s two sets of grandchildren became each other’s step-siblings, echoing what had happened to the offspring of Arthur’s paternal grandmother Jennie Edith Martin’s siblings Horatio Woodman Martin and Mary Lincoln Martin Bucher sixty-five years earlier.

After Arthur’s death, his widow and surviving daughter finally dissolved Reliance Engineering and Development Company. Corrie moved out of the duplex in 1986, joining her daughter and son-in-law in Manhattan Beach. At the same time, she sold the duplex to them, so ownership continued to be in the family. Three years later, the younger generation finally fulfilled the plan to build a house on the front half of the parcel, which they then occupied. This remains the family residence today, where Arthur and Corrie’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren spend as much time visiting as they can.

Corrie Tadlock Hodge survived her husband by nearly a dozen years, passing away 4 September 1993 at the age of ninety-two.

Descendants of Arthur Oscar Atwood Hodge with Corrie Sue Tadlock

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