Obituary of Ruby Mae Hodgkins

Ruby Mae Hodgkins

On Sunday, June 17, 2018, Ruby Mae Hodgkins passed away peacefully. Ruby was the fourth of seven children born to the late William Isaac Underwood and Beulah Mae Alderson, Ruby was the wife of Howard M. Hodgkins, devoted mother of Bill Hodgkins (Marielle) and Wanda Floden (Ron), cherished grandmother of Greg, Brittney, and Eric.  She leaves one brother, devoted nieces, and nephews, wonderful cousins and friends.

The family will receive friends Friday, June 22 at 2:00 PM with service at 3:00 PM at Adams-Green Funeral Home, 721 Elden Street, Herndon, VA. Interment will be Tuesday, June 26 in Johnsburg, NY

Ruby was a very supportive wife to her husband who was a career Air Force Master Sargent and later continued his career in computer maintenance as a computer technician, instructor, and management that required 3 more moves in 25 years. Her love of children allowed her to have her own business in child care for almost 30 years.

Ruby never met a stranger, loved country music and decorating for the holidays. \

Ruby was My wife, my love, and my life.

The sweetest, kindest person I ever knew. She was the love of my life and was always there to help and support me in everything I was doing.

As you all know we traveled around a lot for 20 years in the Air Force. It always ended to be her job to supervise the unpacking of each move, as by the time we got into a house I had already been back to work at the new location. Not many women would do that every couple of years for 20 years, but she did. She was very excited about going to Toul Rosiere, France and we did go on vacation to Holland, Belgium, Germany, and Austria. Our 2^nd overseas assignment was Karamasel, Turkey. We lived in the local town for several months before moving into base housing. On Sat we would go to the local farmers market for vegetables and fruit. If the guy picking out the 3 pounds of whatever put anything in the basket that she didn’t like she would take it out. They didn’t like that and expected you to accept the few rotten ones along with the good ones. We walked away from more than one stand because she would not accept any bruised vegetables. I either get what I want or I buy nothing from you. She had a way of putting these Turks in their place. While there we traveled the whole length of Greece to Athens and back. She loved the Chalk Marble Greek figurines she collected along with seeing the ancient Greek buildings.

After the service, my work schedule was more demanding than when I was in the Air Force and sometimes I would be gone for a month or two and she handled everything flawlessly during my absence. She hated being alone but did a great job of dealing with it.

She loved kids and always smiled and talked about kids even the ones on TV News.

She always wanted to help, even after she was trying to recover from a right hip replacement in 2014. Then in 2015, they had to do the hip replacement all over again, because the piece going into her leg came loose.  She never really recovered from that surgery no matter how much she tried and always had to use a walker around the house and a wheelchair whenever we went out. We still went out where ever she wanted to go. Her favorite place was Chick-fil-la, and she was friends with several of the staff and every time we went at least 2 or 3 of them would come over and talk to her and give her a big hug.

The early morning, she passed away, it was quite sudden. She got sick to her stomach just before midnight on June 16, then was OK about 12:45 AM., and was going back to sleep. At 1 AM she had a violent convulsion/seizure and I held her until she stopped shaking but she never regained consciousness. Her heart stopped at 1:55 AM while in the ambulance on the way to Reston Hospital.  God gave me an angel in my life and after 61 years with me, God took her back.

With all my love,

Howard