Betty Hodges

Betty June Hodges, 95, of Mission, Kansas passed away November 18, 2020. Betty was born in Kansas City, Missouri on July 31, 1925 to Jessie Lucile Buck and Cloyd Arnold Bacon. She was born on her maternal great grandmother’s birthday and always felt a great connection to her. She and her older brother Robert C. Bacon moved often with their parents in her early years, attending 16 schools by the time she graduated from high school. Moving back to the Kansas City area, she attended the University of Kansas. She worked her way through three years of college by working one year and going to college the next year. It took her 6 years to complete a BS in Advertising in 1942. She was a loyal and active member of Alpha Delta Pi sorority both in school and throughout her life. After graduating from KU she went to work for Lever Brothers. She was proud of the fact she was the 7th person in the state of Kansas to earn a CPS degree as a Certified Professional Secretary, which was during the early days when women were still striving to achieve stature in the professional workplace. In 1955 she married Richard S. Hodges and they settled into a new house in Mission, Kansas where they raised three children.  She used to laugh at the fact that she lived in so many places the first 30 years of her life and then the same house for the next 65 years.  She remained active with Alpha Delta Pi sorority, serving as a national officer and President of the Greater Kansas City Panhellenic Association.  She was a long-time member of the Village Presbyterian Church.  With a gift of writing, what began as bedtime stories for her children were eventually refined and published into the children’s book “Nasturtium and His Magic Doors”.  She was also a columnist for Doll Reader and Collector’s Mart magazines, and an active patron with the National Institute of American Doll Artists for many years.  Later in life, she became interested in genealogical research and traced her lineage back to the American Revolution and the Mayflower.  She belonged to the Shawnee Mission Chapter of Daughters of the American Revolution and was a member of the Society of Mayflower Descendants in the state of Texas.  She loved the English language and was an avid reader of everything from the classics to the Wall Street Journal. She possessed an astonishing vocabulary, never lost at Chinese checkers or gin rummy, loved to travel, especially to Great Guana Cay in the Bahamas, was an excellent cook and a devoted Jayhawk basketball fan.

She leaves her children, Valerie (Keith) Cheney of Austin, Texas; Diane Hodges of Mission, Kansas; Lance (Robin) Hodges of Overland Park, Kansas; four grand-children, Grace Cheney, Olivia Cheney, Benjamin Hodges, Marin Hodges; nephew Chris (Pam) Bacon; nieces Julie Fick and Patti (Tim) Meihls. She was preceded in death by her husband of 33 years, Richard S. Hodges.

Memorial donations are suggested to the Nettie Murray Scholarship for outstanding students in the School of Medicine, and can be mailed to: KU Endowment P.O. Box 928, Lawrence, KS 66044-0928 or give securely online at www.kuendowment.org/givenow