Thursday, February 26, 2015

"A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet."

It is no secret that K.M. Hodge is a pen name. My real last name is long and perpetually misspelled. So when I decided to give this writing thing a go, I searched for a pen name that meant something to me and not just some random name that I picked out of a hat. I also had to make sure that no one super famous already had the name. I eventually settled on K.M. Hodge. K.M. are the initials of my name and Hodge is a family name that goes back several generations. I picked Hodge because it is short, easy to spell, no one famous has the name and I love the story of the Hodges and how I came to be one.


My great, great, great grandparents, Sara and Tom Hodge, set sail for the Americas from England during the beginning of the American Civil War. They landed in New York, where an agent put them on another boat bound for Canada. On their way to Canada they hit a bad storm and were forced to debark in Eagle Lake, Mi. They ended up staying there and having eight children including my great, great grandmother Alice. It is interesting how fate interceded. If they had made it to Canada then my great, great grandmother Alice would never have married my great, great grandfather Richard and consequently my great grandmother, my grandmother, my father, and myself never would have been born. All because of a storm.

Has anyone else ever gone down the rabbit hole that is Ancestry.com? I’d love to hear about some of the interesting stories that you have unearthed. Or share with me what your pseudonym might be if you were a writer?

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