Truckin' on the Western Branch

My father had a store for a while—K & P for Kirchmier and Phelps and then Kirchmier’s General Merchandise. It had beautiful wooden counters and the whole family worked there. He added shops behind that he rented out for $15 a month.

We all rode ponies and horses, but my father refused to let us have a jumper. So we slipped over to Captain Chadwick’s nearby farm and rode the jumpers he kept for his granddaughters.

I thought I wanted to be a vet but ended up at the Medical College of Virginia studying to be a medical technologist when I met Bill Dodson who was in dental school.

They married and finally came back to Hampton Roads and raised their four children at Wildwood. Alice Dodson had a successful antique/home décor business, Once Upon a Time, that grew into her daughter Alison’s current A. Dodson’s in North Suffolk, Virginia Beach and Norfollk. Then Alice retired to the riverfront cottage on the family property where she’s been known to take a bullhorn to the pier to remind errant boaters that they are speeding through a No Wake zone.

Billy Hodges Billy Hodges, no relation to General John Hodges of Hodges Ferry, served in the General Assembly, in the House of Delegates, 1961–1965, and the Senate, 1965–1972.

The proudest moment of my life was when I stood on the floor of the House and raised my hand to take the oath as delegate—something I had never thought I’d achieve.

I was born in 1929, grew up in Norfolk County, halfway between Great Bridge and Hickory, and can remember when Cedar Lane was a gravel road and as picturesque as the Old South could be with large plantation houses.

My dad, J. Arthur Hodges, was the sheriff of Norfolk County and a farmer. He had an old pea picker and a special horse to plow straight rows. He would have cringed at the new quarter-million-dollar combines now. My mother, Lela Old Hodges, said he farmed for show not for dough. I graduated from Great Bridge High School and wanted to be a state trooper but never was until four years ago when I was made an honorary trooper. I had been appointed as a probationary trooper but was drafted a week later and served two years in the Coast Guard, 5th District, Special Investigation Unit. Mills Godwin and Albertus Watkins were my close friends too. Albertus never got the credit he deserved for bonding the General Assembly together during the integration years, especially 1962. Friendships were broken over integration, but Watkins healed it over. Integration in Norfolk County went smoothly largely due to Ed Chittum, school superintendent. Norfolk County schools were among the best in the state. I moved to Churchland when I got out of law school and lived in Briarwood. We were all good friends. A. B. Greene had developed Briarwood, and Chris Hall was my back door neighbor. With the annexation I had to move to Chesapeake and built the first home in Point Elizabeth. The Norfolk County Clerk of Court, Commonwealth Attorney, Commissioner of Revenue, superintendent of schools, chief of police, and more were all living in the Portsmouth section when the boundary lines were drawn. The lines were drawn to accommodate some of them, Speedy Waldo, and Charles Cross, but most ended up moving to Chesapeake. Judge Jimmy Godwin was a close friend from Randolph Macon College and talked me into going to law school at Washington & Lee.

Billy Hodges. Image by Sheally

In 1972 I went to the bench and spent 13 years as a circuit court judge .

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