I Will Survive: Till Death Do Us Part

Lulu Otey Hoge

At first, I was afraid; I was petrified

Kept thinking I could never live without you by my side

But then I spent so many nights thinking about how you did me wrong

And I grew strong

And I learned how to get along

By Gloria Gaynor

Moving into Walnut Spring with her brother Otey after her husband’s death in 1903, Lulu became the wage earner. Her position in 1905 was the Blacksburg, VA Postmaster. In 1910 she bought the Alexander Black House on the corner of Draper and Clay Street in downtown Blacksburg. She and the children moved there, but the young widow, only 31 years after her husband’s death, must have had difficulty raising six children. In 1915 she decided to get wed again to John James Davis, a professor who was 12 years younger.

Was the uncertainty of WWI causing her to be uncertain and need additional support, causing her to marry? In 1914, the World was already at war, but once America entered the war in 1917, Lulu’s boys John “Rusty” Hampton Hoge, Jr., Dan Howe Hoge, and James “Jim” Otey Hoge all enlisted. Before he left, Dan married Cornelia Frances Wamble  (1917). 

What was it like for a young mother to have three children in the service in one of the deadliest conflicts in history? Her anxiety is unimaginable. Luckily, they all returned home safely, much to their mother’s relief. However, Dan continued his military career serving in World War II as a major while stationed in Hawaii.

After the war, the rest of the Hoge clan were soon married. Liz Otey Hoge married Walter Newman, President of Virginia Tech (1920). Alice Dunbar Hoge married Captain Norman Drysdale Gillet (1924). Jim married Marrian Amelia Barrett (1926) after he graduated from Virginia Tech (1922). And Rusty married Katherine Estes (1927).

Lulu and her second husband, John, had already moved to Tennessee, where he worked at Sewanee as a professor. Her daughter, Louise “Tick” Kent Hoge, moved with them. Louise lost her hearing when she was a baby. Her first word was from listening to the tick of a clock which stuck as her nickname. Since she was considered incapable of caring for children, she was sterilized, which was a custom at the time. Although not considered marriage material, she eventually married William Brogan at 38 years old.

Now that her children were raised and out of the home, Lulu looked to her future. However, her youngest daughter Alice Dunbar Hoge had one child, Louise Kent Otey Hoge. Pregnant, she came to Tennessee to get her mother’s help.  Her husband, in the military, must have been gone for periods of time. Alice needed help with the birth of her second baby. Unfortunately, Alice’s childbirth left both mother and child deceased. She was only 29 years old.

The stock market crash and the death of her daughter must have been a shock to Lulu. Then came the Great Depression. During this time, Lulu moved back to Virginia and most likely lived with or near her daughter Liz in Richmond. She and her husband, John, divorced. The Great Depression had a serious effect on families during that decade.  Although it isn’t clear why the separation happened, when a person filed for divorce in most states in the '30s, they still had to prove they were the victim of cruelty, adultery, or abandonment.

Lulu passed away in 1930, suffering from heart issues, causing blood clots in the brain. She left this world with the legacy of her children, which she and her husband started so many years before. Maybe she wasn’t famous, but their legend lives on through the lives of their ancestors.