Miss Mary Sue Hodge, daughter of Duke Hullum and Eliza Crawford Hodge, was born in Gordon County, Georgia, December 27, 1845. Her grandfather, James Hodge, was a Methodist minister at Oxford, Georgia, for many years. Her grandfather, John A. Crawford, was a Baptist minister of Cassville, Georgia, then the county seat of Bartow County. He served this church for twenty-five years and, gave the land on which Cherokee Baptist College for Boys was built, and was a trustee of that college.
Her father died while yet a young man, leaving nine children whom her mother reared and educated during the trying period of the War Between the States and the period of readjustment, which followed. Mary S. Hodge was educated at Cassville Female College. Soon after her family had refugeed to Henderson, Houston County, Georgia, in 1864, she began her career as teacher. She taught hundreds of children in Georgia and Florida and always organized and taught Sunday school in connection with her school. Mt. Carmel, in Bleckley County, and Bethlehem Church, in Pulaski, developed from Sunday schools organized by her.
Her sisters were: Mrs. Chester Pearce of Henderson and Mrs. A. A. Smith, of Hawkinsville, both of whom were first honor graduates. Her brothers, John W. and James Virgil, of Henderson, were educated at Cherokee Baptist College at Cassville, Georgia, and served in the War Between the States. Morgan H. was a merchant and cotton exporter of Kennedy, Alabama. R. Michael and Mark T. were graduated from the University of Georgia in the same year with honor, Mark having received first honor. They became partners in the practice of law after Mark had built the Hawkinsville Institute which he taught with his sister, Elizabeth (Mrs. A. A. Smith). Paul Joseph attended the University of Georgia and moved to Hot Springs, Arkansas, to practice law. Mark, Mike, and Joe were members of the Kappa Alpha Fraternity.
Miss Mary Hodge, in her ninety-first year, occupies an unique place in the history of Pulaski County in that she is its oldest resident, keenly and actively interested in all civic and church affairs. If anything, she is more interested and diligent than she has ever been in her long life of service.