Remembering family and friends
A roundup of notices and services. Look for additional obituaries on this newspaper’s website.
Saratoga Springs, NY– Elizabeth J. Hodges, 96, passed away on November 10, 2019 at Wesley Health Care Center. She was born in Wilton, NY on June 19, 1923 to the late Clarence Collamer Smith and Nora Carr.
Elizabeth spent several years working in the bakery and deli at Central Markets on Railroad Place followed by many years as a bookkeeper at the Carl Company Department Store in Wilton. However, she was most proud of the time she spent raising her children.
She had a profound interest in human relations and people, especially her family and closest friends. Elizabeth loved getting together with family; many of these gatherings were poolside, and she contributed to a private in-ground backyard pool with diving board at her grandchildren’s house which brought unparalleled joy to family, friends, adults and the many children who participated in this pastime from the first warm days in late May until the waning days of summer. It became the indisputable centerpiece of family holiday celebrations and cookouts from Memorial Day to Labor Day. These were some of the best years of her and her family’s lives. It’s an understatement that she enjoyed being outside, swimming, and sun bathing. She also loved to travel and would frequently head south with good friends to warm and sunny weather in Florida or the Carolinas in the winter. Elizabeth also wasn’t afraid to shop. She would never pass up an opportunity to stop in Macy’s or Boscov’s and the object of her purchases was always for her family, especially her children and grandchildren. Keeping with her love for being outside, Elizabeth truly loved attending on a daily basis during her retirement the backstretch at Saratoga Race Track, with a NYRA permit sticker on her car, especially accompanied by her grandchildren and a few select friends. She was well known to the backstretch security! She could also be seen stopping frequently at Bruegger’s Bagels on Broadway. When Elizabeth wasn’t outside, and especially during the years raising her young children, she enjoyed watching the Today Program almost from its inception in 1952, as well as later Regis and Kathie Lee, eventually Regis and Kelly and also Wheel of Fortune during her retirement.
In addition to her parents, Elizabeth is predeceased by her husband Douglas A. Hodges, sisters Dorothy Smith and Ruth Ella Smith Pierce, and daughter Donna Marie Freebern (the wife of James C. Freebern), and her grandson Jonathan Collamer Freebern.
Survivors include her son Dennis Hodges, grandson Justin Chase Freebern and his wife Laura and their children, Elizabeth’s great-grandchildren, Jonathan and Carter Freebern, all of Saratoga Springs.
In her later years, Elizabeth was in debt to the skilled nurses and certified nursing assistants at Wesley Health Care Center; and in her final weeks found great comfort in Hospice.
A funeral home service will be celebrated at 6 p.m. on Thursday, November 14, 2019 at William J. Burke & Sons Funeral Home, 628 North Broadway, Saratoga Springs. Burial will be private. Online remembrances may be made at www.
burkefuneralhome.com.