At Care Partners hospice facility in Asheville, N.C., Helen Hodges passed away peacefully at about 12:30 on the morning of Feb. 1, 2025. She was 91 years of age.

Helen was known to many as one of “three ladies in tennis shoes” who ran around RockbridgeCounty in the 1970s, founding the first local hospice.

Helen was preceded in death by her husband Louis, a professor at Washington and Lee University from the fall term of 1960 until he retired in 2004. At dinner parties for faculty couples, wild quail was often on the menu, prepared by Helen.

Helen’s surviving family includes sons John and George, John’s wife Linda, George’s wife Nina, and their daughter Christie who resides in Bristol. John’s side of the family includes two grandchildren, seven great-grandchildren, 14 great-great-grandchildren plus one on the way. Most are in Arizona but a former Navy family is in the Washington, D.C., area.

Helen gave birth to John the summer before moving to Lexington for the 1960 fall term at W&L. Helen gave birth to George in 1961 at StonewallJackson Hospital in Lexington. 

Helen was the daughter of Johnny and Annie Lou Davis of Utica, Miss. She met Louis while both were undergrad students at Millsaps in Jackson, Miss. At Duke University, as Louis did graduate work, Helen worked for faculty “up on the very-hot third floor” before the era of central air-conditioning.

Helen performed volunteer work which included the Commission on Religion and Race of the United MethodistChurch.

A celebration of life is planned, in Lexington, tentatively on Mother’s Day weekend this year.