Sterrett-Hodge family papers

Bascom Franklin Hodge (1898-1978), a WWI veteran and WWII Tuskegee Airman, was the grandson of Reverend Norman Bascom Sterrett (1841-1921), founder and pastor of Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, S.C. Hodge was born in New York, the son of Gertrude Minerva Sterrett (1866-1946) and her husband Leander Watson Hodge (1861-1934). He attended the Charles Reynaud School for Embalming and embarked in the funeral home business with his mother and cousin, Norman B. Sterrett, Jr. (1879-1944), an Avery Normal Institute graduate who ran for New York State Legislature on the Equal Rights Party. In the army reserves, Hodge served as a captain of the Tuskegee Airmen 99th Pursuit Squadron until 1958. Hodge compiled documents pertaining to the Sterrett, Hodge and related families of Charleston, S.C. and New York, N.Y., including photographs and government records.

The papers are divided in two series. The photograph series consists of original individual and family portraits of Sterrett-Hodge family members with notations on back by Bascom Franklin Hodge stating their relationship to him. Included are images of Noisette, Cole, Romay, Dillahunts and other family members. The biographical and printed material series consists of correspondence, ephemera, and material on birth, death, and marriage of the Sterrett-Hodge family members. It also includes a photographic booklet (1943) of the Tuskegee Army Flying School with an inscription by Captain Bascom F. Hodge.