Richard Earl Hodel

1937 - 2025

Richard Earl Hodel

September 24, 1937 - July 27, 2025

Durham, North Carolina - Richard E. Hodel, longtime mathematics professor at Duke University, who was a devoted and much-loved husband, father, father-in-law, and grandfather, died in the Hock Family Pavilion, Durham, NC at the age of 87.

Born and raised in Elkin, N.C., he was the son and only child of Winifred and Earl Hodel. He graduated from Elkin High School in 1955 and Davidson College in 1959. At Davidson he majored in mathematics and played on the tennis team. Dick continued his study of mathematics at Duke University, receiving his Ph.D. in the spring of 1962.

After four years of ROTC at Davidson, he had a two-year commitment to serve in the military, an obligation he could postpone until after graduate school, thanks to Sputnik. Because of his mathematics background and computer programing skills, he was assigned to the Weapons Analysis Branch of Army Artillery at Fort Sill, Oklahoma as a First Lieutenant. When he arrived at Fort Sill, cost analysis calculations for artillery were performed by two people using an adding machine. Each calculation required many different cases and took at least eighteen minutes for one final answer. Dick wrote a computer program (Bendix G15, quite slow by current standards) that reduced the total time per calculation to 10 seconds. For this work he was awarded the Army Commendation Medal for Meritorious Performance.

In the fall of 1965 Dick returned to Duke where he became a member of the mathematics faculty for nearly fifty years. An award-winning teacher, he was much appreciated by the approximately 4000 students he taught, including five Ph.D. students, whose theses he supervised. While his primary research interest for many years was topology, especially set-theoretic topology, cardinal functions and metrization theory, later in his career he focused on mathematical logic. His book, An Introduction to Mathematical Logic, was published in 1995, and later he wrote the mathematics portion of Three Views of Logic: Mathematics, Philosophy and Computer Science. Although he formally retired in 2007, he continued to teach courses particularly in the MAT Program, where he had taught many courses over the years, and to supervise graduation with distinction students until 2015.

Dick met his future wife, Margaret Jones, in the classroom as she was a first- year graduate student in his topology course in 1968-69. In the summer of 1969, after three dates, he proposed and they were married January 3, 1970. After receiving her Ph.D. in 1972, Margaret began teaching part-time in the Duke Mathematics Department, retiring with Dick in 2007.

Dick is survived by Margaret, to whom he was happily married for more than 55 years, and their children: Richard (Richie), whose wife is Kelly Speer, and Katherine (Katie), whose husband is Christopher Schroll. He is also survived by two adored grandchildren: Hadley and Jack Schroll. Richie and Kelly live in Flagstaff, AZ., and the Schroll family lives in Durham.

In addition to mathematics and family, Dick enjoyed travel in the United States, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. He loved art, especially modern art, visiting many art museums, taking OLLI art courses and creating paintings himself. Music played an important role in his life as well; from the piano lessons he began at a young age to the Chamber Arts Concerts he attended for many years and the Met's Live in HD cinema he appreciated more recently. He also spent many hours gardening and reading. He planted well over fifty azalea bushes on the grounds of his beloved Duke Forest home and enjoyed reading and rereading works by his favorite authors, especially Jane Austen and Anthony Trollope.

The family is very grateful to Dr. Kathleen Waite at Duke Signature Care for the excellent care she has given Dick for many years. They also appreciate the Duke Hospice care he received at the end of his life.