[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 41 (Tuesday, March 8, 2022)]
[House]
[Page H1338]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1045
                     REMEMBERING SARAH LOUISE HODGE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Gomez) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GOMEZ. Madam Speaker, I rise in memory of a constituent of mine, 
Sarah Louise Hodge.
  She was a mother, a grandmother, an educator, a union rep, and also 
my mother-in-law. She died on the evening of January 20 in Los Angeles, 
with my wife at her side, as well as her caregiver, Patricia.
  She was born in Macedonia, Ohio. She is the daughter of two teachers, 
and she was the youngest of three and the only girl, but she was raised 
as a tomboy through and through, and her brothers taught her not to 
take any crap from anyone.
  She became a teacher, a kindergarten teacher for over 40 years, 38 
years at the same school. She was an educator through and through. She 
would make sure that each student had their own curriculum, their own 
box, and then made sure that any time that she found a new student that 
didn't feel welcome, she would find a way to connect with them.
  When I met her, she just had a student that enrolled that was from 
Latin America. She thought he was Mexican, but I think he was 
Salvadoran, but close enough. She wanted me to go and get to know him, 
so we went to the Cleveland Zoo so she would feel more comfortable. I 
got to speak a little Spanish to that student.
  Like many teachers, she always went out of her way to give out of her 
own pocket to the students that didn't have much, and that is one of 
the things that she did.
  She was an educator even with her own daughters. When they would go 
on summer family trips to Virginia and the different areas around here, 
she would play the Civil War songs that were being played on a tape, 
and then she would go to the different historical sites for the 
daughters to know about our history.
  She was an educator through and through, but she was also a tough 
advocate for teachers. She was a union rep. Her daughters would often 
go and sit in the union meetings where they would plan out strikes, and 
they would participate in everything that a union does.
  She was soft spoken. She was quiet, but I learned my lesson when I 
tried to debate her once at Thanksgiving where she didn't let me get a 
word in edgewise. I knew at that moment that if I helped her run for 
office, she could have become a Member of Congress, no problem. She was 
fit for the position.
  She was very adventurous except when it came to food. Back in the 
1960s, she traveled around the globe on a cruise ship, and she went to 
India and different countries. This is different because she had a 
disorder where she couldn't eat any spices, so tell me how do you go to 
India when you can't eat spices? But that is what she did. She went 
around the globe because she wanted to travel, learn about different 
cultures, no matter if she couldn't eat spices. She was a very 
interesting and tough woman.
  There are different people you meet throughout your life, you think 
there is coincidence in life. One of them for me is that she had an 
uncle whose name was Laurence Woodworth. Most Americans don't know who 
he was, but he was the director of Congress' Joint Committee on 
Taxation, which I find interesting because I am from California, the 
son of immigrants, and I married her daughter, and I end up coming to 
Congress, and what committee am I on? I am on the Ways and Means 
Committee, which is the main taxation committee that interacts with the 
Joint Committee on Taxation. So you never know how lives from different 
parts of the country are going to intersect.
  She had a profound impact on my life, not only through her daughter, 
but also just kind of being a calming force when I ran for office the 
first time. She was one of my first max-out donors, even after she 
retired from teaching, and that is impressive because retiring on 
teacher's pay and then being able to give a max contribution was a big, 
big deal, but she believed in me enough.
  She started losing some of her personality, it felt like, because of 
the stroke she had in 2014, but she got to come here to Congress when I 
got sworn in and got to meet Speaker Pelosi. Speaker Pelosi gave her 
Ghirardelli's chocolate, her favorite. My mother-in-law opened it, ate 
it, made a face, and gave it back to Speaker Pelosi, so she didn't lose 
that spirit.
  She has been a force. I want to just say that she will be missed. She 
is survived by her two daughters--my wife, Mary Hodge; Felicia Hodge 
and her two kids, Stacey and Fedrick; her brother, Al Woodworth; as 
well as the extended family of the Eysters.
  Sally, you will be missed, and we love you very much. We will see you 
again soon.

                          ____________________