Esther M. (Hurtt) HODGE

HODGE, HURTT, PARSONAGE, SELINE, CLUETT, JOHNSON, WILLIAMS, MOEN

Posted By: Sarah Thorson Little (email)
Date: 2/10/2024 at 13:06:47

Esther M. Hurtt Hodge
17 June 1898 --- 24 October 1994

Services for Esther M. Hodge, 96, Rock Island, are 1:30 p.m. Friday at First United Methodist Church, Rock Island, where she was an active member. Burial is in Memorial Park, Rock Island. Visitation is 12:30 p.m. until service time. Memorials may be made to the Memorial Trust Fund of the church or for playground equipment at Mel Hodge Park, Rock Island, which had been named after her husband, who was Rock Island Superintendent of Public Recreation from 1926 to 1955. Wheelan Funeral Home, Rock Island, is in charge of arrangements.

Mrs. Hodge died Monday, Oct. 24, 1994, at Rosewood Care Center, Moline. The former Esther Hurtt was born June 17, 1898, on a farm near Hoople, N.D., the daughter of William and Marian Parsonage Hurtt. She married Melville H. Hodge July 9, 1926, in Hoople. He died March 15, 1986. She was a 1923 graduate of the University of North Dakota. She began her art teaching career in North Dakota. Later she continued to teach art for 16 years at Calvin Coolidge School, Moline. She had assisted her husband in creating such past Rock Island events such as Marshall Dramatic Contest and Lantern Parade.

She was an accomplished water color artist, having studied under important painters in California and at the University of Washington. Her paintings may be found in a number of residents and businesses in the Quad-Cities and elsewhere.

She was member of Chapter BK, PEO Sisterhood and had been a member of the former Steadfast Circle of Kings Daughters, and a former member of Delta Zeta Sorority.

Survivors include a daughter and son-in-law, Marian and William Seline, Sacramento, Calif.; a son and daughter-in-law, Melville H. Jr. and Jane Hodge, Saratoga, Calif.; grandchildren, Rebecca Cluett, Susan Johnson, Thomas Hodge, Barbara Williams, and William and David Seline; seven great-grandchildren; and a sister, Ruth Moen, Viroqua, Wis.

Dispatch - Rock Island, Illinois
Wednesday, October 26, 1994