Los Angeles
County
Biographies
NELLIE D. HODDLE
Known
throughout the San Gabriel Valley as “Mrs. Trees” because of her forest
conservation work, Nellie D. Hoddle is the district chairman of the California
Federation of Women’s Clubs’ Penny Pines program – a program to raise money to
supply trees to plant in burned over recreation areas. The program is set up in “plantations” of 680
trees at a penny apiece. The San Gabriel
Valley District is composed of thirty-four women’s clubs, and headed by Mrs.
Hoddle, subscribed for fifty-six plantations between 1957 and 1960; this
district has led the state for three consecutive years. Mrs. Hoddle has won the state and district
awards for her work in Penny Pines. A
tree was planted in her honor in Barnes Park, in Monterey Park, in 1960 by the
Garden Section of the Monterey Park Women’s Club, of which Mrs. Hoddle has been
a member since 1951 and of which she was president in 1956. During her year as president of that club,
she assisted in the formation of Service Club, Incorporated, wrote a history of
the proceedings, and aided in the establishment of the present Service Clubs’
Building in Monterey Park. She was also
the recipient of the Richfield Conservation Award in 1958, 1959, 1960 and club
level for 1961.
Mrs.
Hoddle was born in Leotta, Minnesota, on September 5, 1896, the daughter of
Julia Otilla (Nelson) and Gert
Edsko Dyksterhuis. All of her paternal ancestors in Pieterburen, Holland, were buried behind their coat of arms
and under the white marble floor of the church, between the fifteenth and
nineteenth centuries. The church still
stands today. Her grandfather was a
sportsman who settled in Orange City, Iowa, in the middle 1800’s. Her father came to the United States at the
age of nineteen. He was a farmer who
raised thoroughbred prize-winning livestock; he served as county clerk in
Minnesota. Mrs. Hoddle’s mother was the
daughter of a sea captain of Norway. Mr.
and Mrs. Dyksterhuis were early settlers of Prowers County, Colorado.
Mrs.
Hoddle attended Western Holiness College in Colorado Springs, from 1910 to
1914, majoring in music. She attended
Holly High School, receiving awards in music and speaking; she graduated in
1915 and received post graduate business training at the high school for one
year as well as attending Denver University summer teacher’s institutes. For three years prior to her marriage, Mrs.
Hoddle taught elementary school in Prowers County, Colorado.
In
1919, on July 15, the former Miss Nellie Dyksterhuis was married to Henry
Hutchison Hoddle in Hartman, Colorado.
Mr. Hoddle was a naval aviation quartermaster 1st class at
the time of their marriage; he is now executive vice president of the H & L
Tooth Company, machinery manufacturers, in Montebello. He is a member of Ramona Lodge Number 457, F
& AM, a thirty-second degree Mason, Pasadena Consistory; the Al Malaikah
Shrine and Ramona Eastern Star Chapter Number 367. He is also active in the Isaack
Walton League and in church work, serving on the finance committee for the
Community Methodist Church of Monterey Park in 1959 – 1961. Mr. and Mrs. Hoddle moved to California in
1928, eight years after they had fallen in love with it on their honeymoon. They lived in five different communities over
the years, and in 1941 they moved to Portland, Oregon, for five years, but
returned to California in 1946 to Monterey Park, to stay. Wherever they lived, the Hoddle’s have been
church members, and Mrs. Hoddle has played the piano and organ for services,
sung in the choirs, led the choir, and taught Sunday school as the occasion
demanded.
Mrs.
Hoddle is a member of the auxiliary of the Community Hospital of San Gabriel,
serving on the auxiliary’s board of directors in 1960, and presently serving as
memorial, devotions, and remembrance chairman, in which capacity she placed a
painting in honor of Blanche Hoskyn in the lobby of
the hospital in September, 1961. Mrs.
Hoddle is a member of the board of directors, 1959 – 1961, of the Community
Concerts Association of Monterey Park.
She is also a member of the Ramona Eastern Star Chapter Number 367 of
Monterey Park, serving as hostess in 1960 – 1961.
Mr.
and Mrs. Hoddle are the parents of Robert Henry Hoddle, who is employed as
supervising mechanical engineer at Lockheed Aircraft Corporation in Sunnyvale,
California. He is the father of three
sons: Dykster,
Kent, and Vance. Mrs. Julia (Hoddle)
Kirkland is the mother of one daughter, Karin, and is employed in personnel
work at the Pacific Power and Light Company in Portland, Oregon.
Mrs.
Hoddle’s hobbies include gardening—she is conservation chairman of the Green Thumbers of San Gabriel Valley; and fishing—she is a member
of the San Gabriel Valley Ikeetas Chapter, Women’s
Auxiliary of the Isaack Walton League of America,
serving as first vice president and conservation chairman of that organization
for 1961, and elected president in 1962.
Her other hobbies are music and civic activities. She also serves as chairman of Conservation
of Natural Resources for the Monterey Park Woman’s Club, and frequently
lectures on the subject of conservation.
Mrs. Hoddle is currently serving on the Monterey Park Community
Methodist Church Chancel Choir Committee.
Transcribed by
V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source:
Historical Volume & Reference Works Including Alhambra, Monterey Park,
Rosemead, San Gabriel & Temple City, by Robert P. Studer,
Pages 716-717, Historical Publ., Los Angeles, California. 1962.
© 2013 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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NUGGET'S LOS ANGELES BIOGRAPHIES