Posted on: Monday, December 20, 2004

Peggy Hickok Hodge, 89, journalist, author

By Karen Blakeman
Advertiser Staff Writer

Peggy Hickok Hodge, longtime Hawai'i journalist and author, died Dec. 7 at her Kailua home.

Hodge, born in Honolulu on Dec. 26, 1914, was 89 years old. She once wrote that she considered herself "Hawaiian at heart."

During her long career as a feature writer she wrote for both The Honolulu Advertiser and the Honolulu Star-Bulletin.

Her book, "Gardening in Hawaii: Handbook for the Home Gardener" won a Ka Palapala Po'okela Award from the Hawai'i Book Publishers Association in 1998.

Shortly after publishing the book in 1997, she told an Advertiser reporter that adapting to nature can be more rewarding than fighting it.

"At first, I used to tear out all of the wedelia as it kept coming into my yard," she said. "Then I gave up, and invited it to come right in. Now I think of it as a showy ground cover with very pretty yellow flowers. It thrives here, so why fight it?"

"Growing Up Barefoot in Hawaii," Hodge's memoir of a less cluttered island life and her fifth book, was published soon after "Gardening in Hawaii."

She is survived by her sons, Monte and Lee Hickok; her sister, Ellen Luther; and her grandchildren, Maila Supe and Keoni Hickok.

Private services will be held later.