THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 14, 1996 TAG: 9607120182
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Ida Kay's Portsmouth
SOURCE: Ida Kay Jordan
LENGTH: 84 lines
It has been a long time since Portsmouth has had a separate unit of the League of Women Voters.
Consequently, the South Hampton Roads league representing five cities doesn't really keep up with issues peculiar to this city.
Mildred Hudgins thinks it's time to fill that void.
On July 27 at 10 a.m. she'll host an organizational meeting in the parlor of London House, 516 London Blvd. The program will focus on the future of health care in the nation and in the region.
``People in Portsmouth are concerned about the closing of Portsmouth General Hospital, and health care seemed like a good topic for the first meeting,'' said Jennette Franklin of Norfolk.
It turns out that Franklin, a member of the league's regional board, is a college classmate whose married name I didn't know. She has been a league member since she moved to Norfolk 40 years ago.
``The league studies issues and then takes a position based on the information,'' Franklin said. ``We don't support individual candidates.''
However, the league does encourage its non-partisan membership to support the candidates whose views coincide with the league's positions.
Hudgins, 89, is a Portsmouth-born woman who came home a couple of years ago to live at London House to be near family members. She moved to Portsmouth from Raleigh, N.C., where she was on the league's board and chaired a committee to study affordable housing.
``When I left Raleigh, they gave me a membership in the Hampton Roads League as a going-away gift,'' Hudgins said.
Franklin said the league in Raleigh wrote to the league in Hampton Roads to tell them Hudgins was coming to the area.
``They said don't let her age fool you, that she was not old,'' Franklin said. ``They're right.''
Hudgins is the daughter of the late C.W. Hudgins, whose food market was a well-known Portsmouth institution. She left Park View to attend Randolph-Macon Woman's College in 1923 and only came back for visits until two years ago.
Her career was interesting. She was in Japan from 1936 until World War II as an educational missionary, teaching English to Japanese students.
She taught religion at Wesleyan College in Macon, Ga., served as executive director of the YMCA on the University of Illinois campus and retired in 1973 after serving as director of student religious life for 13 years at her alma mater. In 1993, Randolph-Macon Woman's College honored her with its Lifetime Achievement Award.
Somewhere along the way, she got a master's degree and studied a year at Union Theological Seminary.
``I got involved with the League of Women Voters after I retired,'' Hudgins said. ``But most of my working years involved working the communities of the five college towns where I lived.''
Hudgins first joined in Pelham, N.Y., where she lived for 13 years and served two terms as president of the local league. About 10 years ago, Hudgins moved to Raleigh and continued her activity in the organization.
``We need a separate unit here to talk about Portsmouth concerns,'' Hudgins said. ``We will be part of the regional organization and meet here as a unit of that group.''
The League of Women Voters was founded in 1920, shortly after the ratification on Aug. 26, 1920, of the 19th Amendment, giving women the right to vote.
Franklin said the league has declined in numbers like most women's organizations over the past two decades as more and more women have gone to work full-time. One unit in Norfolk meets at 7 a.m. for an hour, then most members go off to work, she said.
The South Hampton Roads organization has about 100 members, she said, ``but a larger percentage of them are active than when we had more members.''
Currently, the organization is working on a project to study regionalism and plans to hold a meeting on the subject. In addition to regionalism, the league recently has done local studies on transportation and education in Hampton Roads.
``We're looking for a core group in Portsmouth at the meeting this month,'' Franklin said. ``We'll try to get started this summer so we will be ready to work in the fall.''
Franklin said the league hopes to monitor city council meetings in each city so members can understand the issues that concern citizens.
``We need Portsmouth people to help us do that because people who live in a city understand the problems,'' she said.
If you're interested in your city and want to put your consideration of the issues on a higher plane than mere politics, you might want to check out the July 27 meeting.
Hudgins said the first meeting was scheduled for a Saturday morning because that's a time when many women are not working. by CNB