Pat Hodges

Funeral Service will be at 1:00 p.m., Saturday, May 21, 2022, at Amber First Baptist Church, Amber, Oklahoma. Interment will be at Amber Cemetery under the direction of Sevier Funeral Home.

Luther Pat Hodges was born March 18, 1932, in Tuttle, Oklahoma, to Gertie Effie Hodges (Hutchison) and Marvin Luther Hodges, and he graduated to his heavenly home on Tuesday, May 17, 2022. He was the third of seven children having an older brother, Dean, and an older sister, Estella. Pat's family eventually included sisters Reba and Sue, as well as brother Ted, and his only surviving sibling, brother Larry. The Hodges were farmers and agricultural laborers, so Pat was never a stranger to hard work. His early years were spent in a multitude of houses between Amber and Tuttle, running the banks of Bitter Creek with his siblings.

He began his schooling in Tuttle, but around 3 ^rd or 4 ^th grade, he found himself in a schoolroom in Amber with a short little brunette named Nettie Virginia Fleming. It might not have been love at first sight, but they were never far apart after that. The rest of his younger years were split between working on the farm, hunting, fishing, and chasing Nettie. They graduated from Amber High School in 1950, and Nettie and her close friend Reba, Pat's sister, soon found jobs in Kansas City. After a few months of separation, Pat took the train to Kansas City and brought his true love back to Amber, and married her on December 2, 1950. They would have been married 72 years this coming December. They settled on a dairy farm east of Amber, just up the hill from Pat's family farm. Nettie has always joked that people back then speculated they "had" to get married, and sure enough, 2 ½ years later Rocky Lee was born. Two more boys were born to the union; Randy Pat in 1955, and Ricky Dean in 1957. After a few years on the farm and working other jobs that were available, Pat's childhood back injury worsened, forcing him to find work elsewhere. The baby of the family, and the only girl, Rori Virginia, completed the family in 1965.

In the late 1950s, Pat began a long career working for the USDA Soil Conservation Service and he and Nettie moved to Chickasha, where they made their home, raised their kids, and lived until Pat's death. For the first 15 years or so, he was an integral part of the survey crew, traveling all over the state of Oklahoma, surveying the creeks and rivers in order to map out and build flood-control lakes. When his old back injury got the best of him, he finished his career in the Chickasha office drawing intricate maps of the very lakes he had helped create. Since his first three children were boys, it wasn't long before he was involved with Little League baseball, and practically lived at the cluster of ballfields that used to exist on the west side of Chickasha. He eventually became a coach, teaching hundreds of boys (including his sons) how to play the game of baseball correctly and honorably. Even after his own sons had outgrown the sport, he continued to coach and mentor young boys on the diamond. He didn't limit his time to only baseball and was one of a small group of men that started Chickasha's Mighty Mite Football program, where he also coached, mentored, and touched lives for many years.

Over the years, Pat and Nettie enjoyed a variety of hobbies that brought them both a great deal of joy. He loved to fish and quail hunt, and he and Nettie became avid square dancers. He also played the harmonica and could call a square dance as good as anyone. He tended to be a clown on the dance floor and was presented with a name tag that read "Set Louser." After he and Nettie settled on Riviera Drive in 1973, Pat's interests transitioned to three things; his yard, which was their pride and joy, woodworking, and eventually jigsaw puzzles. He and Nettie worked countless hours in their yard, and they could both tell you the name of every single flower and bush they had planted and how to care for it. Nettie filled dozens of photo albums with pictures of their living works of art. Pat began making birdhouses and other wooden creations and he and Nettie worked the craft show circuit for many years. Pat retired from the Soil Conservation Service in the mid-eighties and later worked part-time for his son Rick at the gas station, at Motor Service delivering parts, and finally at AutoZone. When he finally retired for good, he discovered a love of puzzles, and began putting together beautiful landscape pictures. Of course, he naturally had to make frames for them too, and they quickly became coveted gifts for family members and friends. As the years ticked by, Pat's greatest joy became his numerous grandchildren. Nine in all, he could tell you every detail of why they were each the most wonderful things on earth. Nettie's health began to decline in late 2019, and she became a resident at a local nursing facility. Two years later, his own health began to fail, and he became a resident of Shanoan Spring Nursing Facility, where he recently celebrated his 90 ^th birthday. He would never admit it, but he loved the staff he met there and gave them hell every day just to prove it. He also became very fond of the many nurses and aides from Kindful Hospice that helped care for him until his death. He might have occasionally shared a Kit Kat or fudgesicle with a few of them.

He was preceded in death by his parents, two brothers, and three sisters, and his beloved dogs Sassy, Sadie, and Bella.

Pat is survived by his wife Nettie, all four of his children and their spouses, ten grandchildren, eleven great-grandchildren, one great-great-grandchild, numerous nieces and nephews, cousins, and friends, and his dog China.