By Dan McCaffery for the Sarnia Observer
The story of Gordon Hodgins is more about what might have been than about anything he accomplished in the Mayor’s chair.
That’s because our 57th Chief Magistrate committed suicide just 24 days after taking office at the beginning of 1934.
The tragic death of this young and talented politician stunned the City and put an end to an extremely promising political career.
Hodgins, who was born in Sarnia on January 4, 1898, worked briefly in a bank before being hired by Imperial Oil in 1916.
He ran for City Council in 1929 and soon proved to be an able and energetic Alderman. In fact, Hodgins was quickly named Chair of two of Council’s most important bodies – the Finance and Welfare Committees.
Needless to say, big things were expected from him when he was elected Mayor at the relatively youthful age of 36.
Sadly, he would chair just two meetings.
Still, during that time Council established a community welfare house to assist unemployed residents. The home, which opened during the height of the Great Depression, included a workshop where men could do odd jobs and a room for women to take sewing classes.
Mayor Hodgins was driving home from London in the middle of a rain storm on January 21, 1934 when his car went into a ditch. He lay unconscious for three hours before being discovered, bleeding and bruised at 2 a.m.
Released from hospital in mid-afternoon on January 25, the Mayor went to his Durand Street home and poisoned himself. A doctor summoned to the scene found him semiconscious with a bottle of poison under his bed. He was rushed to hospital but died that afternoon.
The Observer reported doctors concluded he had died from “carbolic acid poisoning, self-administered”.
The newspaper added “it is known that for several days Mayor Hodgins’ health had not been good, that he was distressed and that he had business worries”.
He left behind a wife, a young son and an aching feeling that a potentially great Mayor had been lost.