Harold and Jan Hodge named to Chamber Hall of Fame

It’s a scene that many in north­eastern Kansas look forward to one weekend every fall on Holton’s Town Square — arts, crafts and food vendors putting down stakes for an open-air market on all four sides of the Jackson County Court­yard.

That scene was a vision that Holton residents Harold and Jan Hodge brought home several years ago from a trip to New Orleans’ famed French Quarter and sug­gested to the Holton/Jackson County Chamber of Commerce as an annual event — the French Market.

“The French Quarter is such an interesting area, and we kept saying while we were down there, ‘This just reminds us of the Town Square at home,’” Jan Hodge said. “When we came home, we kind of dis­cussed it with a few people, and we knew we had the ideal setup to replicate that flavor in Holton. Why don’t we see how it goes?”

Even though it’s known today as Fall Fest, the annual event that the Hodges inspired still draws large crowds to the Square. But the cou­ple, who moved to Holton in the mid-1970s, are known for much more than that in Holton.

That’s why the Hodges are being honored as part of the Chamber’s Hall of Fame inductees for 2016, an honor that Jan said was “a com­plete surprise.” She’ll be accepting the honors on behalf of herself and Harold, who died in 2013, at the annual Hall of Fame banquet in February.

“Harold would have been very, very humble about it,” Jan said. “He would say there’s a lot of peo­ple more deserving than we are.”

The Hodges, who originally grew up in the Havensville and Onaga area, were married in 1958 in Havensville after Harold served a four-year stint in the U.S. Air Force. They would move to the Denver, Colo., area, where Harold worked for several years at Martin Marietta Cor­poration in Littleton.

At the time they moved back to Jackson County in 1975, Harold was a sales manager for Gates Rubber Company. The Hodges seized the opportunity to return to northeastern Kansas after a Gates representative, whose territory in­cluded northeastern Kansas, de­cided to step down, and Harold took over that position.

Although many of their family and friends thought it was “a step down” for Harold, it proved to be a good move for the Hodges — par­ticularly for their children, who had been attending Denver schools that had been “going through a difficult time,” Jan said.

“He thought it would get us back closer to our families,” she said of Harold’s plan to return to north­eastern Kansas. “We thought it would be nice to have the kids back here in a school system that was more stable, and it did get us closer to our family.”

The Hodges threw themselves into community, church and school involvement, making the decision to open a women’s clothing store on the north side of the Square in 1979. That store, known as Jan’s Attic, was opened to fill a need they saw in the area.

“We felt like that would be a good direction for us to go,” Jan said. The business would eventu­ally move to the south side of the Square and remain a fixture in Holton’s business community for a quarter of a century, drawing busi­ness from well outside the Jackson County area.

In fact, Jan said, she still runs into people who have fond memo­ries of Jan’s Attic. On a recent flight from Baltimore to Kansas City, she struck up a conversation with a woman from Topeka on the airplane who recalled making trips to Holton with her friends to shop at “this really neat little dress shop.”

“I said, ‘Was that Jan’s Attic?’ And she said, ‘Yes, it was!’ And I said, ‘Well, I’m Jan.’ She just about flipped! We had such a good visit. It was such a fun coinci­dence,” she said.

Harold, meanwhile, made a suc­cessful run for a Holton City Commission seat, and in 1980, he was appointed to serve as the city’s mayor. He served on the commis­sion for only one term, it was re­ported, but during that one term, he fully committed himself to public service.

“He really thought Holton was a wonderful community, and he wanted to do what needed to be done to promote it and move it forward,” Jan said of Harold. “He was proud to be a part of that, be­cause he thought it was a wonderful community. And it still is.”

It was right about that time that the Hodges took that vacation to New Orleans and came home with the idea for the French Market, in­spiried by the open-air bazaar in that city’s French Quarter. In the early 1980s, the Hodges met with Chamber officials to consider set­ting up an annual event to replicate that open-air market flavor, and eventually, the French Market would run for 28 years under that name.

“They’re not using that name anymore,” said Jan, who noted that the last time it was known officially as the French Market was in 2008. “But it has continued, people still enjoy it, and it really seems to be holding its own.”

The Hodges continued to be in­volved in community and Chamber activities, even through the closing of Jan’s Attic in 2004. Jan said closing the store was a tough deci­sion to make, but at the time of its closing, she said, “life is all too fleeting to not spend more time with those most precious to me.”

“I also wanted to do some trav­eling with Harold and his business, and I did,” she added. “That was most enjoyable.”

Harold would retire from his own sales business, Hodge and Associ­ates, in 2008, and he and Jan began to enjoy their retirement years, but stayed active in the community. He died on Sept. 1, 2013, 55 years and one day after he and Jan were mar­ried.

Less than two years later, Jan made a donation to the City of Holton as a memorial to Harold and his love for their adopted home­town. That donation of funds, which provided for the placement of a water fountain at Elkhorn Lake in Rafters Park, was intended to honor Harold and his love of the city and its parks, but it has brought joy to many inside and outside the Holton community.

“I’ve been getting a lot of nice notes from people, and I really ap­preciate it so much because we didn’t do it for any glory to our family,” Jan said. “We did it be­cause Harold loved the parks, and he loved that lake. It just seemed like the natural thing to do.”

Indeed, Jan receives notes and calls from people who express their appreciation for the donation, par­ticularly from people who work on the Square but go to Elkhorn Lake to enjoy the fountain.

“I’ve had families say that they’ll be getting the kids ready for bedtime, and the kids will say, ‘We need to see the fountain before we go to bed!’” she said. “It makes me feel good, because we wanted it to be something that the community at large would enjoy, and this indi­cates that they do, because you hear it from children — you hear it from all ages in the community.”