A New Testament Comes Home    

                    Most of the comments I have received from readers of this column during the last twelve years have concerned accounts of tours Joyce and I have taken. As the World War II-era song said, and is somewhat true of us, (We) “Don’t get around much anymore.” At least, not on long or overseas trips. But I want to tell you about something which did not get around for nearly seven decades.

            Though it is rather personal, I considered it significant enough to relate an account of the return, after sixty-five years, of a New Testament. It unfolded like this. In early August, I received a telephone call from Bruce Hodge, of the Glendale community near Kenly. He had received a small package from a woman in Maryland, containing a 1942 “Bible,” with the name inscribed, “Albert H. Hodge, Kenly, North Carolina.” Bruce knew that it did not belong to him and thought I might know something about it. After talking about it briefly, as to its identity and how a person in Maryland had possession of it, a little later Bruce and his wife, Cynthia, came for a visit and brought the Book.

            The blue weathered New Testament, with a January 25, 1941 introduction by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and supplied by Gideons International, was one of millions made available to service men and women during World War II, one of which was given to me and I still have.

            The New Testament’s inside cover also included “A.S,, U.S.N.T.S, Great Lakes, Illinois,” and “Mr. J. A. Hodge, father, of Kenly, NC.” I understood that the letters meant “Apprentice Seaman , U.S. Navy Training Station, Great Lakes, Illinois.” But it was more difficult to determine how after so long the Testament had been mailed to Bruce by a Maryland resident. The woman’s enclosed note stated that she knew nothing whatsoever about Albert, the “Bible,” or how it was found in her house, only saying that as she was going through some of her mother’s things she found it.

            The woman’s return address on the package identified her as Pegg Altieri of Reisterstown, Maryland. Attempting to find its owner, she had searched the Internet for an “Albert Hodge in Kenly, NC,” and finding  only one person in Kenly who might be the one, she sent it to Bruce Hodge, whose full name is Albert Bruce Hodge. Without knowing anything more about it she did the very commendable thing of sending the New Testament to Bruce in Kenly.

            In a few days I searched the Internet for “Pegg Altieri” of  Reisterstown, MD. After determining  the right address I learned her name was “Margaret,” and made several telephone calls to talk with her. I told her some things about Albert to identify him to her and to thank her for sending the small book. I explained that after his release from World War II service in the Navy, Albert had done college and seminary work, and had been killed in an automobile wreck in New Orleans on November 7, 1948, when he and his wife Jewell were students at the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary . A couple of days later I wrote to Pegg to thank her again and to give her a copy of my book, Big Memories of a Little Town, which includes many references to Kenly and some to Albert.

            Albert Haywood Hodge was my brother, and six years my senior. I knew about his service dates and assignments, having in 1999 compiled a 506-page book , Letters from Albert Hodge, “ containing many of his wartime letters saved from his frequent writings to my parents, my siblings, and me.  After his Boot camp at Great Lakes, Illinois, Albert attended the U.S. Navy Signal School, at the University of Illinois, at Urbana, from October, 1942 through February , 1943. Then he trained in military amphibious procedures in Virginia’s Tidewater area, at Norfolk, Portsmouth, and Little Creek, before going to California, Australia , and New Guinea. In the Pacific Theater he safely participated in five major invasion landings.

             I reasoned that on a visit with someone in the Tidewater area, at a church function, or an after-church invitation to someone’s home, he had mistakenly laid the New Testament down and just forgot it. That was more likely, since sailors’ uniforms during those days had little in the way of pockets, and he may have been holding it in his hand, making it easier to put down and forget. Or he may have given it to his host as a memento. 

            The New Testament of Albert’s  has no monetary value and very little worth as a collector’s item, but the sentiment carried with it is invaluable. Similarly, there must be multitudes of priceless treasures for someone, such as letters, pictures, diaries, and medals, forgotten or undiscovered, lying hidden in some drawer, trunk , or attic box. Finding them and getting them to surviving family members might provide solutions to unanswered questions and integral pieces to the puzzle about a person’s life.

The address of my website, HODGEPODGE PUBLICATIONS, is www.rayhodge.com. Books of mine available for ordering are posted there, as well as other information and access to free articles of mine, formerly published in The Smithfield Herald. 

A listing of books by Ray Hodge can be found and ordered from his website. They are also available at the Smithfield's Heritage Center, Quick Print Solutions, and The Kenly News.

BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY OF RAY K. HODGE
206 West Wilson Street, Smithfield, NC 27577

Ray K. Hodge is a native of Kenly, North Carolina. After graduation from High School and World War II US Army Air Corps service, he attended and graduated from Mars Hill College, Wake Forest University, and earned two degrees from Southeastern Baptist Seminary. During graduate study he taught Church Administration at Southeastern. He was a pastor for forty years, retiring in 1988 after 15 ½ years at FBC, Kinston. He served for 2 1/2 years as an Associate Director of the Seminary Extension Department of the Southern Baptist Convention. He is a retired US Army Colonel, having served as a Chaplain in the NC National Guard and the US Army Reserve.

Ray Hodge served on or chaired numerous committees in the North Carolina Baptist State Convention, including 2 ½ terms as President of the General Board. He has been a Biblical Recorder Director, a Trustee Meredith College, a Trustee of Wake Forest University, and a member and Chairman of the Board of Ministers of Campbell University.

Ray wrote the Sunday School Lesson commentary for the Biblical Recorder for nineteen years and was a teacher for the Baptist State Convention Sunday School Department's televised Sunday School lessons, 1981-1993.

Ray Hodge has traveled in Canada, Mexico, Central America, the Middle East, Europe, and all of the fifty United States.
Since retiring from the full time pastorate, he has published six books and writes a monthly column for the Smithfield Herald, called “HODGEPODGE.”
Since retirement Ray Hodge has served as the interim pastor for eight churches and for four years as the chaplain for the Johnston Memorial Hospital's Hospice program.
He is a member and President of the Smithfield Rotary Club. Ray and Joyce Hodge, the former Joyce Harrell of Edenton, and a Mars Hill and Meredith graduate, live in Smithfield. They have three children, all married, and six grandchildren.