Stanley Hodgins

Stanley Hodgins aged 103 passed away Tuesday, July 28, 2026 in Saskatoon. Our Dad/Grandpa was an amazing man. He was kind, generous, thoughtful, multitalented and possessed a quiet witty humour and a smile that could light up a room. He was the sixth of ten children and the last to survive. He had started telling people he was 104 because he was closest to that birthday. His self-proclaimed secret to living a long life was regular (daily) consumption of black coffee, red wine and ice cream. Dad had many interests, hobbies and affiliations with service groups over his life. He sang in multiple choirs and enjoyed solo parts when asked. He was a lifelong Rotarian, belonged to the Assiniboia Legion for over eighty years, was a Mason for over seventy years and was a member of the WaWa Shriners for over sixty years. He enjoyed gardening, photography, wood working, sudoku and baking bread. His most loved past time was connecting with family, both close and distant relatives. He was the best Dad and Grandpa that we could ever have asked for and we will all miss him immensely.

He was predeceased by his beloved wife Laureena (Pat) (nee Wright), his parents, Garfield and Hester (nee Ward) Hodgins, his siblings and their spouses Lloyd Hodgins, Haldon (Malty) Hodgins, Evelyn (Norm) Orcheson, Ivan Hodgins, Helen (Gerry) Rennie, Gladys (Lennie) MacDonald, Doris (Gerald) Hall, Inez (Cecil) Sorenson and Shirley (Bud) Guenther, Pat’s brother and his wife Jim and Betty Wright, and his sweet grandson Jonah Babulic.

Left to cherish his memory are Sarah and Doug Woo (Chloe and James, Olivia and Micheal, and Madeline), Kevin Hodgins and Dot van Vliet (Oliver, Clare and Brynn, and Laura), Kathleen Hodgins and Dave Babulic (Isaac) and Dan and Tara Hodgins, as well as many nieces, nephews and close friends, including Neil and Anne Doell.

We would like to thank Dad’s family doctor, Dr. Reem Abdul Hadi, for her competent and compassionate thoughtful care over the years. We also want to thank the doctors, nurses, care aides and staff of both St. Paul’s Palliative Care Unit and The Hospice at Glengarda, where our Dad spent his last few weeks. You provided him with dignified, respectful and compassionate care.

BIOGRAPHY OF STANLEY HODGINS

I was born on my Grandmother Ward's sixtieth birthday, October 16, 1922, in Mortlach, SK, the sixth of ten children of Garfield and Hester (Ward) Hodgins. My mother had come to Mortlach in 1906 with her parents and her siblings, from Jarvis, Ontario. She registered at the Regina Normal School and graduated in 1907. She then taught in one-room rural schools in the area until her marriage in December 1911. My father came to Mortlach in 1905 from Pontiac County, Quebec, which is in the Ottawa Valley about fifty miles west of Ottawa, to join his older brothers who had come a year earlier. He graduated with highest honors in 1909 from the Niles Bryant School of Piano Tuning in Battle Creek, Michigan. My Hodgins ancestors came to Canada from County Tipperary in Ireland. My mother's ancestors came from England and Ireland.

Dad travelled regularly over an extensive area of south-west Saskatchewan from Moose Jaw south to the US border, and north to Hanley, Rosetown, Kindersley, and Oyen and Medicine Hat, Alberta, tuning and repairing pianos. He was also the organist and choir director of Emmanuel Anglican Church in Mortlach. He wasn't successful at keeping me practicing violin, but he taught me to read music and sing. I had a husky voice, so I sang alto until my voice changed to the tenor range.

When I finished high school in 1940, I got a job as clerk and delivery boy at McBride's Grocery Store, fulltime including Saturday evenings, $4.00 per week. It was wartime and I left after sixteen months to join the air force. During that time t had advanced to $7.00 per week.

I trained in the prairie provinces as an air observer, which was a combined course as navigator and bomb aimer. I received my 'O' wing and officer commission in November, 1942 at Paulson, Manitoba, and was posted to Summerside, PEI for a reconnaissance course. For about eighteen months, with my pilot Bob Conrad and two wireless operators, we were stationed at Sydney, Nova Scotia, patrolling the Atlantic coast and escorting conveys bound from Halifax as far as our fuel would permit.

In the summer of 1944, we went overseas to India and Burma to support the British army which was driving Japanese forces out of Burma. We kept them supplied with all of their needs, food, ammunition, fuel, etc. from our airfield stations on Akyab Island and then Ramree Island off the coast of Burma. We were living in tents, and our most formidable foe was not the Japanese fighter planes but the monsoon thunderclouds. It rained fifty inches per month from May to September every year, and we had to fly in spite of the weather. My military rank in Burma was Flight Lieutenant. The war ended in South-east Asia on August 15, 1945 and we were soon on our way to Britain to await our turn for sea voyage to New York and train to Montreal. I was at home in Moose Jaw with my parents and sisters for Christmas.

In the spring of 1946 1 registered for a veterans Certificate Course in Business Administration at the University of Toronto. It was a full year course and, at the completion of it, I decided that I should have a degree, so I transferred to the University of Saskatchewan where I graduated in 1949 with a Bachelor of Commerce. I articled in Moose Jaw with the firm of Hodge, Bamford & Wilder to qualify in 1952 as a Chartered Accountant. In my first audit assignment in 1949, I met my future wife Laureena Wright who was a public health nurse working in the Central Butte area. The partners of the firm decided to open an office in Assiniboia, and they sent me there to manage it. I was in Assiniboia from 1951 till 1970. Laureena (nicknamed Pat) was the first head nurse in the rehabilitation department of the new University Hospital which opened in 1955. We were married on October 11, 1958 and our four children were born while we lived in Assiniboia.

We moved to Saskatoon in 1972 where I joined my university friend Russ Dunlop to form a new firm, Dunlop, Hodgins & Co. The Deloitte firm didn't have an office in Saskatoon and they invited us to be their office. That merger came about in 1974. I retired from the firm in 1978.Pat and I travelled in most continents during our retirement, with and without the children. My sister Helen Rennie and her daughter Pat were wonderful caregivers when the children were left at home. When the children were with us we had a station wagon and house trailer. I think all of our children caught the travel bug.

I had an active role in the Anglican Church throughout my lifetime, in the choir and local and national executive positions. I was the lay delegate from the Diocese of Qu'Appelle at the world Anglican Congress in 1963. When Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip worshipped at St. John's Cathedral in 1987, because of my position as people's warden, I was presented to her.Pat and I lived on Vancouver Island from 1993 to 2000 at Arbutus Ridge, an adult community overlooking Georgia Strait. We had a clear view of the ferries to and from Vancouver, and of Mount Baker in the United States. It was a great place to live, but Saskatoon was calling us back. Our four children had all married while we were at Arbutus Ridge and Pat wanted to be nearer to them. She was on hand for each of our seven grandchildren when they were born, or the next day, and whether it was in Saskatoon, Yellowknife or Thompson, Manitoba. Pat died in September, 2015.

The Celebration of his life will be at 2:00 PM Saturday, October 17, 2026 at St. John's Anglican Cathedral.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the St. John's Cathedral restoration fund https://www.stjohnscathedralsaskatoon.ca/restoration/#Support or to the Hospice at Glengarda https://sphfsk.ca/hospice/donate/ or to a charity of one's choice.