Rev. Dr. Serchal Wilfred Hodge, affectionately known as Freddie, Tr. Freddie, Uncle Freddie, Rev. and Chunts, was born on Sunday January 17, 1932 after the evening worship. He was the third child of Francis Nicholson and Lillian Violet Hodge. He grew up on what is now known as Back Street which was then nothing more than a foot track.
Freddie grew up at a time when Anguilla had little to offer in amenities. Farming was the mainstay of the economy and the only payday in Anguilla was associated with the salt industry.
Freddie, and his siblings, attended the Road Primary School. The building, like other schools on the island, belonged to the Methodist Church. He started his formal education a few months before the age of five, skipped Class 2 and received his Standard Seven certificate at the age of eleven. At that time there was no secondary education available in Anguilla. One either became a pupil teacher or waited until sixteen to leave school.
It so happened that an educator from St. Kitts, Mr. Dejong, came to Anguilla and started the first High School in 1945. Mr. J.B. Owen, proprietor of the Factory, the largest business in Anguilla at that time, and a Methodist local preacher, offered a scholarship to the school, and Freddie was the successful candidate. At the school, the students were exposed to a secondary education and learnt Latin, French, Math, Biology in addition to the more traditional subjects but, unfortunately, the school was closed due to the lifestyle of the Principal.
Freddie wrote in his “Memoirs: Rev. Dr. Serchal Wilfred Hodge” (an unfinished fledging document): “Freddie was at a loss. What can a fifteen year old boy do with his life? When one door closes another door opens”. Soon after the Government began to offer scholarships to Anguillians to attend the St. Kitts-Nevis Grammar School. Freddie and Tr. Adrian Hazell travelled by sailing boat to St. Kitts to write the exam. They landed in Sandy Point and were on their way on foot, suitcases in hand, to Basseterre, some ten miles away, when they were helped by a truck driver who inquired who they were and where they were going. When he understood their mission, Freddie recorded that he could not be sure, but the truck driver laughed and said under his breath: “Foolish Bobba Johnnies”. He offered them a ride anyway and they arrived safely at their destination.
Only one phrase baffled him in the examination, he reminsced: “Adult Suffrage” but that did not prevent him from passing the exam and gaining a scholarship to the St. Kitts-Nevis Grammar School.
So at fifteen, Freddie left home again for a three-year scholarship in St. Kitts. He wrote, “I tearfully bade farewell to my loving and devoted family, who were glad to see their son and brother pursue a higher education.” And so again, with his little suitcase and a box of Anguilla produce: peas and corn, guinea corn bread etc, he travelled once more, by sailing boat back to St. Kitts. For the three years, he found his accommodation challenging, and he wrote: “It was here that I learned patience, endurance and humility. It was here I learned to eat white rice cooked with gar fish and sprat”. His sister, Janet, believes that it was this sojourn in St. Kitts that propelled him in the direction of the ministry. For whatever his experiences were, through it all, he had learned to trust in Jesus, he had learned to trust in God and his Holy word. She remembered too that Mama would cry every time he came home on holiday.
On completion of his studies, and with the Senior Cambridge credentials attached to his name, Freddie became a teacher and taught at the Road Primary School for six years. He was a very strict but good teacher, teaching at the upper end of the school and preparing the students for the Common Entrance and Standard Seven examinations. He loved sports and played football. Joyce remembers him coming home with his clothes all dirty and covered in mud after a football game.
He was creative and used his skill to build the biggest kites that could fly the highest in the neighbourhood. He and his brother Hodgie, carved boats from the locally grown tree trunks and sailed them in the pond. He built a church from cardboard and crepe paper, placed candles inside and used it to serenade the community for Christmas.
As a young man, he followed in his father’s footsteps and had his own vegetable garden. Very often these vegetables were grown in wooden box gardens. His main transport was a bicycle which he used to travel to work, to his preaching appointments, to visit his friends, and to give joy rides to his younger sisters around the neighbourhood. When it was not the bicycle rides, he was pushing them around in a wheel barrow. He was an avid swimmer and spent countless hours at the beach at Sandy Ground.
Having given his life to the Lord at an early age, Freddie was very active in the life of the church. He was remembered for singing tenor in the choir. He was the Sunday School Superintendent. He was a local preacher and a member of the Wesley Guild. He was a member of the Men’s Fellowship. In each organization, whether member or leader, he performed and trained others to perform. He even took part in a square dance and can vividly be remembered waltzing around the stage in his mother’s dress. Throughout his ministry he staged plays and put on concerts in the many Circuits in which he served.
He was very protective of his sisters. But with so many of them, nine of them to be exact, a mother and a grandmother, everything was done for him, much to the disadvantage of his wife, Jean. His younger sisters washed his socks for three or six pence. He believed that if you wanted something you had to earn it. The older sisters washed his clothes as part of their chores. When he went to seminary, he wrote back to say that he had to wash his own clothes. In 1955, he candidated for the ministry, along with Rev. Martin Roberts and Rev. William Watty in Dominica. He served a pre-collegiate year in St. Martin/St. Maarten and the following year he entered the seminary at Caenwood College in Jamaica.
In his obituary, you will hear how he served his master in the Ministry of the Methodist Church in the Leeward Island District and in the Methodist Church in the Caribbean and the Americas.
After forty years, Freddie retired formally from the Conference, but he never retired from the work of God. He continued to serve the Church in Anguilla. He worked with the Zion Methodist Church for a while, and held appointments in all the six churches. He conducted training sessions for leaders and assistant leaders in the purpose and function of the class meeting because he fervently believed that the class meeting was the background of the Methodist Church. He worked with the local preachers and initiated monthly meetings for the Methodist Clergy, active and supernumerary.
Freddie never stopped gardening. Throughout his ministry wherever there was land available at the manse he did his gardening, both ground provisions and vegetables and exotic flowers. He resumed his gardening on retirement. He grew them all organically.
His method was one of recycling. He grew his crops commercially, but Freddie used to make sure he used a portion of certain produce for himself with which he made his own version of Anguillian goodies which he shared with his brethren and his friends, and a few members of his family. Yolande, who lived next door, used to make it just in time for some, although she used to help him get the mixture to the right consistency and flavour.
Freddie also raised goats and chickens. His wife and siblings thought he was really doing too much for his age. So sometimes he would promise faithfully that he would get rid of the goats. And he would butcher a few and sell the meat and grudgingly sell some as livestock. But after a time this activity would stop, and when we look again the flock would be larger than before. Since his passing, Nat Hodge a cousin, with whom Freddie had forged a good relationship revealed that on one of his visits to him he called him to see something. On the way there Freddie repeated “It’s a disease, man , it’s a disease.” So he wondered what disease he was talking about. When they got to the goat pen he confessed to Nat that raising his animals was like a disease. He would set about getting rid of the goats, but every time he saw the numbers dwindling, unknown to anyone, he would go to the Agricultural Department, get a ram and put it in his flock of goats, and in no time they would begin to multiple again. The only explanation he could give is that it was a disease he had.
Freddie also had a passion for photography and stamp collecting, for fishing and swimming. He ardently followed the politics of Anguilla, the USA and the world. In fact that is the only time he listened to the radio or looked at the TV. He spent his leisure hours playing computer games: Spider Solitaite especially up to four options. He managed an apartment building, and could never turn away anyone who came with a hard luck story, genuine or not. It has always been his desire to set up a Trust Fund which would provide scholarships for music and theology, and he would have liked to see Back Street named in memory of his father.
In his endeavours, he was ably supported by a devoted wife who stood by his side through thick and thin in his ministry. They grew together, they learned from each and they worked together. She tried to please his every whim and fancy, especially in his last days.
Freddie was a jolly fellow. He could tell a joke and then laugh the loudest at the joke. One of his colleagues described him as open, cheerful and friendly. Every life that he touched has a unique story to tell about him. He liked to tease – no one was spared.
Freddie was a friend of all and enemy of now. His Ministry in the Church had perhaps perfected in him the qualities of endurance, patience, and humility that the St.Kitts experience had taught him; but the Ministry had also taught him that life was a battle and in that battle he had learned to forgive. So no matter how unfairly, or unjustly he might have been treated, no matter how unkind someone may have been to him, he never held a grudge. He forgave and moved on. He had learnt the virtue of forgiveness.
The Lord called him home after several bouts of illness, the last more intense than all the others. He will always be remembered, far and wide, for the person he was. He will be greatly missed. We will be sad, and mourn his passing. But he is in a better place with his Lord and Master whom he has served faithfully and well.
MAY HIS SOUL FOREVER REST IN PEACE.
