•Linnie Jane Higdon was a granddaughter of Leonard Higdon and Mary Ann McClure.
• She was born in 1885 in Quinlan, Texas
• Her sister was Emma Bell Higdon, born 1887
• She married Charles Newton Hodges from Quinlan, Texas
• C.N. Hodges fought in the Spanish American War with Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders
• C.N. and Linnie met in Texas after the war
• They moved to the Philippines. C.N. opened a business in 1903 as a pawn broker and dealer in jewelry and real estate.
• They had no children
• Linnie loaned Uncle Charles (E. Higdon) $1,500 for college while he was at University of Tennessee in the 1930s
• Linnie’s research was a significant contributor to Opal Willis’ book
• Hodges were wealthy. C.N. had 60 employees. Made predatory loans — when clients couldn’t pay, he took their land. Consequently owned ranches and 16,000 head of cattle. C.N. was a mean man, according to Uncle Charles
• They fed Philippine troops fighting in resistance to the Japanese
• Linnie and sister were interned at Santo Tomas prison camp. Santo Tomas Internment Camp was the largest of several camps in the Philippines in which the Japanese entered interned civilians, mostly American, in World War II. The campus of the University of Santo Tomas in Manila was utilized for the camp which housed more than 4,000 internees from January 1942 until February 1945
• C.N. came back to U.S. and worked in U.S. intelligence. Went back to Philippines with McArthur and then stayed in Philippines
• C.N. loaned $500,000 to Philippines president’s brother. They prosecuted C.N. on charges of usury. Cost Hodges $1,000,000 to say out of jail
• Uncle Charles corresponded with Linnie when he was stationed in Laos. He saw in the newspaper that the wife of an Iloilo millionaire had died. He flew two Iloilo and an armed representative of C.N. met him at the airport. Linnie died of a heart attack. Uncle Charles attended funeral. Linnie was loved by all. Volunteered with the Red Cross, helped with the poor, etc.
• The administrator of Linnie’s estate was Foster Howell, son of her sister, Emma Bell Higdon Howell
• C.N. slept with a 45-caliber pistol on his night table. He owned property in Lubbock, Texas. C.N. lived into his 90s. When he died, he was buried next to Linnie in Iloilo.
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