Hodgkin, Clayton and Laura Collection

SummaryThe Clayton & Laura Hodgkin Collection consists of 20 reels of film, mostly shot by Clayton P. Hodgkin, between 1941 and 1966. The majority of the footage consists of life on the Hodgkin farm and household in Lewiston, Maine. Almost every member of the Hodgkin family is shown engaging in work around the farm alongside their hired farm hands. Activities include baling hay, leading cows to pasture, milking cows, cleaning out the stalls of the various animals on the farm and seeding fields with tractors. The footage contains events in the lives of the Hodgkin children as they grow up such as being cared for by their grandparents as babies, playing with their cousins, neighbors and family pets. The footage contains Keith Hodgkin’s fifth birthday, Brian Hodgkin gradating from Junior High School, Forest Hodgkin’s tenth birthday party and Douglas Hodgkin graduating from college and getting married. Other holidays and special events are depicted such as the weddings of a few close family members and neighbors, Clayton Hodgkin’s parents, Irving and Nora Hodgkin, celebrating two wedding anniversaries and footage of several Additon family reunions. Various parades appear throughout the collection, primarily footage of several years of the Dairy Parade in Lewiston, Maine. The collection also contains footage of the Hodgkin family on vacation at various lakes, rivers, mountains and ski resorts throughout Maine and the surrounding area, as well as attending several Grange picnics and parties.

Biographical/Historical NotesClayton Hodgkin was a dairy farmer and retail milk dealer from Lewiston, Maine. Born in 1914, Clayton Hodgkin graduated from Lewiston High School in 1932. Through much of the 1930s, he was employed by the American Electro Metals Company. Hodgkin eventually purchased his own farm in Lewiston, which included land from four surrounding farms, and opened C.P. Hodgkin & Sons Dairy, which he ran for twenty-three years. The Hodgkins lived on Pleasant Street and Ferry Road, Lewiston. Over the years, he built the farm up to one hundred Guernsey and Holstein cows. He also operated a retail milk home delivery route throughout Lewiston and parts of Auburn, Maine. Hodgkin was active in his local community, as well, particularly the farming community. He was a member of the Lewiston, Androscoggin Pomona and Maine State Granges. At the age of twenty, Hodgkin was elected as Master, or chief officer, of the Lewiston Grange No. 2, the youngest person at the time to hold that title. He was also a member of Ashlar Lodge 105 AF & AM in Lewiston. On Christmas Day, 1937, he married Laura Marion Meade of Auburn, Maine. Laura M. Hodgkin (1918-2006) was a partner in C.P. Hodgkin's Dairy and held office positions at B. Peck Co., Standard Cosmetics and E.A. Buschmann Inc. She also served as an election clerk for the city of Lewiston for 35 years. She was a member Auburn Grange, Lewiston Grange, Pine Tree Grange of Lisbon, where she held several offices. She was reporter for the Maine Granger for seven years. She also held long-time memberships in county, state and national Granges. She held the position of treasurer in the Androscoggin Organic Gardeners and in the Androscoggin Republican Women's Club for several years each. She also was a past treasurer and president of both the local and state Gold Star Mothers organizations. Her hobbies were gardening and traveling. She enjoyed attending several Elderhostels, as well as Gold Star Mother and 1918 Club national conventions. She made several trips across the United States and Canada by bus, train and plane. The Hodgkins had five sons, Douglas, Brian, Keith, Forest and Clyde, and one daughter, Mary. Keith died in a car crash in 1950 and Forest was killed in Vietnam in 1969. Clayton Hodgkin died of a heart attack in 1964 at the age of forty-nine.

RepositoryNortheast Historic Film

AvailabilityThe Collection is open for research.

Conditions Governing Reproduction and UseAuthorization to reuse and/or reproduce must be obtained from Northeast Historic Film. See http://www.oldfilm.org/research for more information.