Sheila Hertslet Hodges

1939 - 2025

Sheila Hertslet Hodges

September 1, 1939 - February 7, 2025

Sheila Hertslet Hodges missed the Super Bowl this year, having departed this world to rejoin her beloved husband Jim. As it was professional football and not college, she likely did not especially care who won. She left us on Friday, February 7th, aged 85. She is survived by her children Rick, Sally and Catherine, and four grandchildren.

Born in Saint Louis, MO, Sheila absorbed her parent's enthusiasm for the arts. She attended Pine Manor junior college in Boston, MA., and graduated from Washington University with a degree in art history. While she never became a professional artist, she improved every space she occupied-interior decorating was her life-long passion. Every house (and one boat) she lived in was transformed into an English country manor. Sheila gardened with the same eye she had for decorating, and part of her legacy consists of the great many creative and luxuriantly indulgent plantings she installed everywhere she had a house, from Massachusetts and the Carolinas to Bath, England. At home she found another creative outlet in needlepoint; Sheila did not particularly enjoy Jim's enthusiasm for driving, and needlepointing on road trips was a marvelously productive distraction. She leaves behind a dozen meticulously crafted rugs that will be cherished heirlooms. Professionally Sheila ran her own sporting art gallery, The Box Seat, and worked along side her husband in the family business, Hodges Badge Company.

Sheila leaves behind a legacy of community involvement. As a young mother she was involved with the Acton Historical Society, and provided illustrations of Acton's pre-Revolutionary War homes for a benefit cookbook. After Sheila and Jim moved both family and the family business from Massachusetts to Rhode Island in the mid-1970s, Sheila became involved with fundraising for a number of Newport institutions including the International Jumping Derby, several designer showcases, Newport Coaching Days and historical and alumni groups. After moving in retirement to Charleston, SC, Sheila and Jim enthusiastically supported and volunteered at the Charleston Aquarium. Sheila joyously manned the hands-on aquarium exhibit and cheerily picked up all sorts of gelatinous sea life in the name of educating visiting school children.

Always a champion of her family's interests, Sheila gamely took up competitive carriage driving to keep pace with her horse-crazed children, rode trains all over the world with Jim, patiently sat trackside in a parked car for untold hundreds of hours with Jim-on the chance a train might come along-and even joined her alarmingly nautical family on a wide variety of boats despite her not being an enthusiastic sailor. She was a crack shot at sporting clays and regularly smoked good ol' boys who dismissed her Chanel suits and Feragamo shoes, to their chagrin.

Sheila and Jim spent their last years together in the mountains of western North Carolina, in the hamlet of Cashiers. There they belonged to the Chattooga, Sapphire Valley and Cedar Creek Clubs. Once widowed Sheila moved to East Tennessee to rejoin family. She became a regular attendee at the Tuesday Yee-Haw Old Time jam, audience member at numerous Martin Center performances and enthusiastic fan of the ETSU football team-Go Bucs!

There will be a Celebration of Life for Sheila on March 8th in Jonesboro TN, and a family ceremony in St. Louis MO on May 17th. In lieu of flowers donations can be made to the Hodges-Larsen Scholarship Endowment #F-671828 to benefit students of Eastern Tennessee State University's Bluegrass, Old Time and Roots Music Studies Program.