This collection, 1882-2016, and undated, contains materials related to Brooks’ research for her book, A Certain Sadness: The Untimely Deaths and Family of David and Romie Hodell in 1920s Rural Newago County, Michigan. This research mainly involved Hodell family history, focusing on the people and events surrounding the murder of her uncle, Romie Hodell, and her grandfather, David Hodell. Included in the collection are genealogies, photographs, copies of newspaper articles and telegrams, correspondence between family members, CDs of oral histories, and research notes. With rare exceptions, most of the materials were created during the 2010s and are copies of primary sources. The sources themselves date from before the murder in the 1880s to the 1990s. Some original materials are the undated pay book of David “Hotel,” {Hodell] Nina “Hotel’s” [Hodell’s] The Royal Path of Life published in 1882, and the 1922 yearbook of Hollis Hodell. There are also materials in Box 2 and 3 that are copies from other libraries, such as the Bentley Historical Library.
The 2021 addition, 1 box, .5 cubic foot, 1967-2015, and undated, contains biographical materials about Brooks’ life from birth to retirement, 1939-2015. The addition begins with her memoir, A Small Town Girl’s Life and Times, which details her life from birth to early retirement and is composed of poems and short stories that Brooks has written. This addition also contains an unbound scrapbook detailing Brooks’ experiences in Austria studying flute at the Vienna Academy of Music in 1967. During her career Brooks’ spent time working as a teacher on the Navajo Reservation in Shiprock, New Mexico. This folder contains photographs and short stories written by Brooks about her time as a teacher on the reservation. Notably, this folder contains drawings and a weaving project gifted to Brooks by her students. This addition also contains chapbooks, news articles and poems published by Brooks during her career. Most of the news articles (copies) were published by the Grand Rapids Press from 1980 to 1989. The chapbooks were published by Babbling Brooks Press and Finishing Line Press from 2011-2012 and 2015. There is a folder dedicated to Brooks’ watercolor paintings, photographs, letters and awards all done through her lifetime. Each folder in the addition contains photos taken by Brooks or of Brooks.
Processing Note: 3 cubic feet of materials, including duplicates, peripheral materials, and materials already in the archives, were removed and given back to the donor after processing. 3 Newago County history books were separately catalogued. One copy of the donor’s book, A Certain Sadnes…,2015, is included in Box 3 as per the donor agreement, and another copy is separately cataloged in the Clarke.
Biography:
Dorothy Hodell Brooks is the daughter of Lucile and Hollis Hodell. An accomplished writer and artist, she is a flutist and painter, and was a Fine Arts Specialist for the State of Michigan Department of Education and a free-lance reporter/photographer for the Grand Rapids Press, Michigan, for several years. Dorothy was Writer-in Residence for the Glen Arbor Art Association near Sleeping Bear Dunes in September 2012, and a Pushcart Literary Prize nominee in 2014.
Her books include Swamp Baby (2012) and A Certain Sadness: The Untimely Deaths and Family of David and Romie Hodell in 1920s Rural Newago County, Michigan (2015). Excerpts from her memoir-in-progress about teaching on the Navajo Nation in New Mexico were published by Weber-The Contemporary West (Native American issue), Colere! and Hippocampus Magazine, the latter for which she also was awarded grand prize and readers’ choice awards in 2013 and was a judge for its annual competition in 2014.
Dorothy Hodell Brooks is also the granddaughter of David Hodell (died February 4, 1922) and niece of David’s son Romie Hodell (died May 6, 1922), who were both murdered in rural Newaygo County, Michigan. Meady Dudgeon Hodell, was convicted for the first degree murder of Romie “Doc” Hodell, her new husband. Her mother, Alice Dudgeon, was convicted of the murder of David Hodell, but a retrial was eventually ordered and through a series of events, was eventually let go from jail because the county did not want to pay for yet another trial for the case. The women were the first females in Newaygo County to be implicated as first-degree murderesses.
Dorothy first learned about the murders when she was ten-years-old. Her family could not bear to discuss the topic and were very traumatized after the murders by stories about them in the press. Her father was so traumatized that he suffered the rest of his life from terrible nightmares. A local area newspaper writer and historian pushed the newspaper stories in which Meady was portrayed as an innocent victim for over thirty years at the Hodell family’s lasting expense. The news coverage resulted in Meady’s sentence being commuted by Governor G. Mennen Williams in 1949, however, she was never pardoned, as erroneously reported in some newspapers of the time, so was never legally absolved of any guilt. Nobody was permanently punished for their participation in the murders, a continuing sore point and ongoing lack of justice for the Hodell family.
In later life, Dorothy collected and researched the facts about the double murders and the numerous completely erroneous accounts that continue to be popular and promulgate today, especially in modern social media. She was determined to write a book based on the facts to discredit this and salve the wounds of the family and set the record straight in Newaygo County. (This information is from her book, A Certain Sadness… and discussions with Dorothy.)
