Fletcher Hodges Jr.
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Fletcher Hodges Jr. (1905–2006) was a leading American expert on the music of Stephen Collins Foster.
Hodges, an Indiana native, was hired during the Great Depression by Josiah Lilly, owner of the Eli Lilly and Company pharmaceutical corporation, to organize the Lilly family's archive of Foster materials, which then numbered 20,000 items. Lilly was a friend of University of Pittsburgh Chancellor John Gabbert Bowman, and he later donated the archive in 1937 to Bowman's newly constructed Stephen Foster Memorial on the Pitt campus. Hodges moved from Indianapolis to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with the collection. What began for Hodges as a three month assignment for Lilly endured as a 51-year curatorship of the Foster collection.
Hodges' wife, Margaret Hodges, was a Caldecott Medal winning writer of books for children.
He died March 13, 2006 at his home in Oakmont.
[edit] References
- Bob Hoover (2006). Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Obituary of Fletcher Hodges Jr.. Retrieved March 14, 2006.
