Fletcher Hodges Jr., 99; Curator of Archive Preserving Memory of Composer Stephen Foster

Fletcher Hodges Jr., who as curator of a massive archive spent five decades preserving the memory of composer Stephen Foster, died March 13 at a retirement home in Oakmont, Pa., a Pittsburgh suburb. He was 99 and had pneumonia.

Hodges had bare musical aptitude when he took over the Foster job in 1931.

He was a recent Harvard graduate reduced, during those early Depression years, to sweeping slaughterhouse remains at a Chicago meat-packing plant. One day, he interviewed with Josiah K. Lilly, owner of the Indianapolis-based pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and Co.

“I was told there was no place in the drug business for me,” Hodges, an Indianapolis native, once said. “As I was leaving, he pulled a sheet of music out of his desk, and he said, ‘Do you know anything about this?’ It was a copy of ‘My Old Kentucky Home,’ and I believed that it was the work of Stephen Collins Foster.”

Initially engaged for three months to work on Lilly’s growing collection of Foster mementos, he instead spent 51 years amassing documents that underscored Foster’s musical and cultural influence.

Hodges curated what is now called the Foster Hall Collection at the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for American Music. The repository commemorates the author of popular American songs such as “Old Folks at Home” (commonly called “Swanee River”), “Oh! Susannah” and “Jeanie With the Light Brown Hair.” Foster, known to have written 201 original songs, died a pauper in 1864 at 37.

Under Hodges, the collection -- the most comprehensive of “Fosteriana” -- grew to include about 30,000 items, including photographs, sound recordings and sheet music.

He also found rarities such as Foster’s own rosewood flute as well as wallpaper with a design based on a Foster song theme.

To create wider interest in Foster during the swing era, Hodges sent the composer’s sheet music to libraries nationwide, and hired musicologist John Tasker Howard to write the first authoritative Foster biography in 1935.

Hodges provided background materials and research for 20th Century Fox’s biopic “Swanee River” (1939), starring Don Ameche as the composer.

Organizing a national letter-writing campaign, Hodges persuaded the Post Office Department to put Foster on the penny stamp in 1940.

The next year, he successfully pushed for Foster’s election as the first musician in the Hall of Fame for Great Americans, now at Bronx Community College in New York.

And for much of World War II, he disseminated copies of the Foster songbook to the armed forces as a morale builder.

The son of a general practitioner and a teacher, Hodges was born Aug. 6, 1906.

At Harvard, he was a member of the boxing, wrestling and track teams, and competed unsuccessfully for a place in the 1928 Olympics in the 100-yard dash. He also was turned down when he applied for a spot on the 1928 Antarctic expedition led by explorer Richard E. Byrd.

For much of his life, Hodges rejoiced in reading about famous train wrecks, statistics on the heights of mountains and tyrannical world leaders. A robust man, he liked organizing trips to places with few amenities, including the Arctic Circle.

His partner in his adventures was his wife of 73 years, Margaret Moore, a Caldecott Medal-winning children’s book author who died in December.

Hodges is survived by three sons, Arthur Hodges of Essex, Mass., Fletcher Hodges III of New York and John Hodges of Washington; nine grandchildren; and 10 great-grandchildren.