The Sergeant sewed dresses
Dave Brown
The Ottawa Citizen
Monday, March 05, 2007
The perfect cop was six-foot-three, a bomb disposal expert, fit, combat trained, tested under fire, a proven leader -- and one helluva dressmaker.
John Wilbert Hodgins, 84, retired Ottawa police sergeant, rocks with laughter at the way he is remembered for his sewing skills. The Ottawa
Police Association, starting at noon March 14, will honour him as a founder, and if they want to tease him about his sewing, he'll demand equal time to brag about it.
In 1946, after a full and active war, he and wife Florence (Cole) were among the first to move into the Mann Avenue project. A sewing machine salesman knocked on the door. During a demonstration, the machine quit. Let me try, said Ottawa's new police officer. He opened the hood and fiddled with the guts and fixed it.
"We bought it. The next day, I went to Ogilvy's on Rideau Street and bought a pattern. A neighbour across the hall could sew, and she helped me with the language. I didn't know what a bodice was. The next day, Florence had a new dress."
He's hard-pressed to find a dress to brag about. It may have been the wedding dress he made for daughter, Vicky, (Smith) 30 years ago, but he rethinks. It may have been a gown he made for a graduation ceremony. He's particularly proud of the chiffon overlay he gave that number.
A widower, he lives in his home enjoying support services from Veterans Affairs Canada. He's fighting cancer and recovering from recent surgery, but views it as simply another problem, and life is full of them. Stay positive and enjoy the day, is his attitude.
It's difficult to imagine his huge hands dancing around a sewing machine. His right hand is badly scarred and there's a big chunk missing off the middle finger. He was defusing a booby trap during the war and managed to remove the detonator. It was while carrying that key part to safety that the damage occurred. It went off in his hand. He spent months in hospital getting the damage repaired.
"I woke up after surgery and there were three guys in bandages waiting for me. I had a huge bandage on my hand, and they were looking for ways to rig it so the bandage would hold cards. They told me they needed a fourth for bridge. I didn't play. They told me I'd learn. I did."
The big sergeant spent most of his war in the Italian campaign, leading a 12-member section of engineers. He was wounded at Monte Cassino -- shrapnel in a shoulder -- but he brushes it off. "I took a couple of days off."
Another memory: "I worked my men all through a night to get a bridge across a gully, but we did it. It was ready by dawn. Then a flight of American planes came in and blew it up."
He spent most of the 1950s at No. 2 Station on Churchill Avenue. "It dawned on me I lived in the east end and worked in the west end. How dumb was that?
"So we bought in the west end, and a week later I was transferred to the east end."
Military life conditions one to accept quirks like that.
He retired in 1981, and by then had left a trail of successes.
He helped found the Ottawa Police Pipe Band. He hunted second-hand clothing stores for used tuxedos, and turned them into "Charlie jackets" to complement the kilts. He made the kilts, too.
For his effort, he got to beat the big bass drum. When he retired from that, he helped restart the temporarily defunct Sons of Scotland Pipe Band, and went drumming again.
He helped create the first pall, to be draped over police caskets, and the first Ottawa police flag. Both have had to be changed over the years as the force grew and the name changed, but until he came along, those trappings didn't exist.
Through it all he seldom missed a shift as a police officer, and one of his specialties was crowd control. "Let them (demonstrators) do their thing. It's a free country, but set and enforce limits."
Cancer gave a new outlet for his sewing skills. He became involved with Victoria Quilts, a North American cause through which cancer survivors produce thousands of quilts for cancer patients, as reminders the disease can be beaten.
With him onside, the Ottawa operation was suddenly mass producing, and getting ahead of the fact that each quilt needs a tote bag. Until recent surgery caused a pause, Sgt. Hodgins produced 925 tote bags.
He also established the Ottawa Police Golden Club. It's an honour roll kept at the police association, and on it are the names of deceased past members of the force.
He will turn 85 on May 28, and says he's not in a hurry to join that club.
dbrown000@sympatico.ca
© The Ottawa Citizen 2007
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