Leah V. (Kettering) Hodsdon

Leah Hodsdon, 98, of Glenwood, passed away and joined the husband that she so missed and loved so dearly on Jan. 27, 2025.

A celebration of life will be held and Leah’s ashes will be interred next to her husband, parents, brother and many neighbors from the farm in the Chippewa Falls Cemetery on Sunday, March 2, 2025 at 1:00 p.m. Memorials to the Parkinson Foundation are preferred.

Leah was born in Garden City, S.D., on Nov. 1, 1926, as Leah Kettering and as a youth moved with her parents, Miles and Lila, and younger sister, Dorothy, and baby brother, Clayton, (Bud) where the Kettering family farmed near Sedan for many years. After high school Leah had a few different jobs and the one that stands out the most in family folklore was her job at the Glenwood State Bank, where she was working when one night at the Lakeside Ballroom, she met a handsome young railroader named Earl, although even then everyone knew him as “Hod” Hodsdon. Even at Leah’s 98th birthday party at Lakeside we all got to hear that story one more time and she never tired of telling it. Hod’s standard joke was he asked her to marry him because as a bank employee he thought she got to bring home free samples, but he did ask her and they married on Oct. 27, 1952.

For the first several years of their marriage Leah and Hod lived in a trailer as they moved throughout Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin as Hod worked on the signal crew for the Soo Line Railroad. Their first son, Richard, was born during those traveling years and started life with lots of adopted uncles from the crew. As Hod gained seniority and Richard was going to soon start school a second son, Timothy, was born and the family spent the next several years moving from town to town as Hod continued to work on the railroad. 

In 1964 Hod was able to land a permanent post in Glenwood and the family moved back to where Leah grew up. Hod and Leah would never move again. They bought their house in 1965 and even though Hod passed away in August 2020, it remained Leah’s home until at the age of 96 health conditions required her to move to Glenwood Estates where she lived until her passing.

In addition to raising her two boys, Leah worked many years as an aide in the Glenwood school system assisting in the high school library and with the kindergarten class, which she dearly loved. When Hod was elected president of his union local, Leah became his unofficial assistant and between that duty and vacations they were able to travel widely over the United States, which she relished. When Hod retired they wintered each year in Arizona with her biggest complaint being not seeing her grandchildren that had by then come into the picture.

Leah is survived by her sons, Richard (June) and Timothy; four grandchildren, Nicole Hodsdon (Chris), Sara (Chris) Stallman, Matt Hodsdon and Timothy J. (Rebecca) Hodsdon; seven great-grandchildren, Cole Hodsdon, Riley, Avery and Robin Stallman, and Wyatt, Everett and Sawyer Hodsdon; and her sister, Dorothy Pickett of California. 

She was preceded in death by her parents, Miles and Lila Kettering; her brother, Bud Kettering; and her husband, Hod, who we will always remember as the love of her life. 

Our family extends our thanks to the caring staff at Glenwood Estates who watched over Leah these last two years and the compassionate and thoughtful staff of Moments Hospice for all that they did for her and our family these past two months.

To send flowers to the family, please visit our floral store.