Virginia Dabney Hodges, 93, the widow of the Rev. Thomas N. Hodges, died May 20 at Chestnut Hill Lodge, a nursing home in Wyndmoor, Pa., where she had been the past four years. The conference was only recently informed of her death and there are very few service records of her late husband. Her funeral was held at the Emmanuel Johnson Funeral Home in Philadelphia, Pa., May 28. Information from the 1958 Washington Conference Journal indicates that Thomas Hodges was ordained elder in the Washington Conference in 1934, and served primarily in West Virginia churches. The Washington Conference was the segregated African-American conference that merged with the Baltimore Conference in 1964, when the United Methodist Church abolished the Central Jurisdiction. In 1951, Thomas Hodges served St. Matthew’s Methodist in Baltimore; from 1953 to 1957, Clarksburg Methodist in Buckhannon, W. Va.; followed by Fairmont, W. Va.; then St. Luke’s in Bel Air, where he died in 1959. According to Charles Dabney, 80, a cousin, one of only two surviving relatives, Virginia Hodges had a Normal School (teachers’ college) education, but did not work as a teacher. She worked for the Penn Fruit Company in Philadelphia for many years, he said. She was a church person all her life, raised in a Methodist Church in Grafton, W. Va., the town of her birth. “She was always a very strong person. She took over the family” as her two brothers and two sisters died, Dabney said. “She was the rock.” Condolences may be sent to Charles Dabney, 2035 Elk Drive, Far Rockaway, NY 11691.
Grose | Grace Bauer Grose, 93, widow of the late Rev. Earl Grose, died Sept. 17 at the Armacost Nursing Home where she had moved in April, 2004. The Rev. Peggy Johnson conducted a memorial service Sept. 20 at the Lassahn Funeral Home in Baltimore. Grace Mitchell married the Rev. Earl Grose in 1964 and worked closely with him in his ministry to hearing impaired people, a ministry inspired by their daughter. They were involved with Christ UMC of the Deaf in Baltimore, where they learned sign language in 1966. He served as the church’s associate pastor from 1968 to 1975. She worked in the nursery and taught crafts to church members. In 1975, he began a ministry to the deaf at Magothy UMC in Pasadena. His memoir mentions that he and Grace “planted the seeds” for the church, driving more than an hour to the church each Sunday, at first working with only two members. She taught Sunday school and their daughter led the choir. He went on disability leave in 1980 and died in October 1984. After her husband’s death, Grace Grose became active with the Kingsville Senior Center and served as its president for many years. She received Baltimore County’s Geri Award for her years of service. She left high school at age 14 to work as a file clerk at an insurance company. Through the next 57 years she worked her way up to a book keeper in various insurance companies. In the years before her husband’s death, they started an antique shop called “The Chicken Coup.” Grose had previously been married to John Mitchell and had a son, Jack Mitchell, who lives in Maine. She also married Dan Austin and had a daughter Barbara Lee. Both were adopted by Earl Grose, and considered him their father. The son and daughter are the only survivors. Condolences may be sent to Barbara Lee Zufall, 3135 Woodhome Ave., Baltimore, MD 21234. Memorial contributions may be made to Christ UMC of the Deaf, 1040 S. Beechfield Ave., Baltimore, MD 21229 or to Magothy Church of the Deaf, 3703 Mountain Road, Pasadena, MD 21122. | 
Login/Register to leave comment