Molly Hodge was two days shy of her 100th birthday (May 20) when I interviewed her. During our conversation, her daughter Dawn’s phone buzzed with updates on the imminent details of overseas family and friends arriving to celebrate Molly’s three day birthday celebration.
Molly, a beautiful woman who looks years younger than she is and credits her fresh appearance to having ‘oily skin’, has an animated approach to storytelling. I’d been keen to interview her for this edition of the magazine, intrigued by reports of her sharp wit, and her impending milestone event, curious to see if a 100-year-old could truly enjoy such a celebration.
Minutes into our conversation I understood that Molly would not only enjoy but also be the life and soul of her party. I could not help but wonder, what was the secret of her longevity? And did my island home, Anguilla, have anything to do with it?
Molly was born in 1924 in Perth Amboy, New Jersey USA, to an Anguillan mother Emmeline Gertrude Roges and Ernest Ferdinad Kydd of Bequia. They had five children; Molly was their first child, and the only girl.
Emmeline, a formidable sounding woman, was born in Anguilla and taught at the original East End school before bravely moving alone as a young woman to New York City to study photography – where she was the only woman in her class.
There she met and married her husband Ernest. After living in Perth Amboy, New Jersey for a bit, the family moved to New London, Connecticut where her dad bought a boat and earned a living as a deep-sea fisherman. Although the bulk of his catch was iced and shipped to the Fulton Fish Market in New York City, Molly said he would always bring some of the best fish home to his family, to include so many New England lobsters that she grew sick of eating them. She noted that eating a lot of fresh fish may have aided to her long life.
Her Anguillian grandfather often wrote to her of the island her mother had left behind. Molly wanted to visit Anguilla and said she would as soon as the Second World War was over. She eventually fulfilled her promise in 1948. Sadly, by that time her grandfather had died so she stayed with her Aunty and Uncle.
It took Molly four days to get to Anguilla. From New York she flew overnight in a prop plane for six hours to Puerto Rico. From there she took a flight to Antigua where she stayed the night, then onto St. Kitts where she overnighted again, then onto St Martin, where she overnighted yet again because the ferry from Marigot had gone for the day. Her Uncle met her at the St Martin “airport”, which consisted of a desk and a clerk on the side of the runway and escorted her to Anguilla in a ‘tiny’ boat.
Once on Anguilla, they got a lift home to her grandfather’s home in one of the island’s three cars. She quickly settled into Anguilla life, despite the lack of electricity, streetlights, running water, telephones and all the other amenities which she took for granted in the US.
One day she went to the construction site of her uncle’s home which was being built and discovered that work had ceased because the crew had run out of nails. She walked back home, changed into long pants, borrowed a ‘heavy’ bike and cycled to the Valley (without a hat because the wind would have blown it off) to one of the two stores in operation at the time to buy the nails. The following day she found out she was notorious. News had soon got round that “there’s a woman, riding around on a bicycle with pants on.”
A few months later, Molly attended a Christmas party where she met her future husband, Joseph Vanier Hodge. Vanier, as he was known, was an Anguillan working as a civil servant in St. Kitts and had returned to Anguilla for Christmas. Molly, who initially planned to stay on the island for six months, ended up staying for eighteen months while Vanier courted her.
Eventually, she returned to the USA with a ring on her finger to make her wedding dress and pack up and ship her belongings to Anguilla. Her mother, who had not returned to Anguilla since she first left, accompanied her only daughter back to Anguilla for the wedding. Molly and Van got married on July 5, one day after the USA’s Independence Day, at St Mary’s church in the Valley, Anguilla.
They then started their new life together in Antigua where Van initially worked in the Finance Office and eventually as the Permanent Secretary for Sir Vere Cornwall Bird, the first Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda.
As the Permanent Secretary to a nation hero, Molly and Van were exposed to a wide range of society and expected to host and attend many events and parties. Canny Molly, who doesn’t drink alcohol anymore, but did back in the day, laughingly recalled all the parties and how drunk some of the guests would get but that she had to remain beyond reproach and confided, “I have big hands and I would wrap them round my wine glass so the servers wouldn’t see it was empty and top me up.”
During her time in Antigua, she became a mother to three girls, Dawn, Joanne and Paula, interacted with hosts of dignitaries, including Queen Elizabeth the Second. Van saved up his vacation time allowing the family to periodically visit with Molly’s family in Connecticut for up to a year at a time.
Molly’s dad, who according to all accounts was a charming and sociable man lived a very good life until he was 103, so longevity runs in the family.
In 1973, Van retired and they moved back to Anguilla to build their forever home, where Molly says, they entertained a lot (she the cook, he the barman), hosting guests and holding parties. They swam in Sandy Hill Bay (reached by a short walk through their property) and Van brought in a Land Rover which the family ‘rattled around the island in’.
Molly made friends with Judge Ena Woodstock (now 107) who introduced and started the Soroptimist International Club in Anguilla. Molly went on to become the first president of the Club and was instrumental in the starting of the Soroptimist Day Care Centre.
When they moved to Anguilla there was only electricity in the Valley, so Molly insisted that a generator be installed during the construction of their home. * She said that at that time the modernisations always seemed to start in the Valley and go West and Sandy Hill is, of course, in the East, but when the telephone lines were installed, it was announced over the radio that they would go from the Valley to the East. She was delighted at this change of strategy. Then one day while driving, she spotted telephone engineers working on a stretch to the West of the Valley, so she pulled over and told them in no uncertain terms, “You’re going the wrong way.
Vanier passed away in 1993, followed by Molly’s daughters Joanne and Paula. Today, Dawn, a retired US Air Force Colonel, lives with Molly. Joining in our conversation Dawn, shared fantastic anecdotes about her mother. As a person who would like to live to 100 myself, I particularly enjoyed these two: her mother always talked of wanting to visit Egypt so for her 80th birthday Dawn planned a cruise on the Nile for them both! And, when Molly’s Passport expired a year ago, she insisted on getting a new photo taken and renewing it ‘just in case”– at the age of 99.
After learning about such a full and exciting life, I asked her one final question – what do you look forward to when you wake up? “Sunshine. And fresh air. And coming out here (gesturing around the patio) in the early morning. Feeling the breeze and drinking a cup of coffee. I wouldn’t go on without this.”
