Elaine Victoria “Babe” (Hodgins) Dempsey Crosby

A memoir written by her son, Jerome Alexander "Jerry" Dempsey.

Elaine Victoria Hodgins was born 24 May 1903 in Lucan, Ontario, Canada, the youngest of the Hodgins clan, to Sarah Catherine Crawley and Samuel Hill “Red Samuel” Hodgins. Her ten sisters and brothers nicknamed her “Babe”.

The name on her birth registration (above) was Lillie Victoria May Hodgins but the name on her marriage registration was Elaine Victoria Lillian Hodgins.

Babe spent her first 20-25 years living in Lucan and London Ontario, eventually training as a nurse, achieving Registered Nurse (RN) status. 
 

She became an accomplished landscape painter, taking lessons at Springbank Park in London with her close friend, Elsie Byers. Babe travelled on one occasion by train to the Banff School of Fine Arts to be tutored by members of the Group of Seven. A few banks commissioned her to provide landscapes for their annual calendars. I have several of her paintings at my home in Madison, Wisconsin. Her best one—of Springbank Park—is here...

On 11 July 1927, Babe married Harold Jacobs Dempsey in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Harold (born 28 May 1898) was from Neepawa, Manitoba. Harold’s parents, James Alexander Dempsey and Mary Emma Jacobs were both born in Ontario but moved to Manitoba. 

Harold Dempsey was a racehorse breeder, and a furniture dealer who owned Dempsey Furniture Company at 426-50 Talbot Street in London.

Babe and Harold settled in London. A baby girl, born about 1932, died at birth. A son, James Harold “Jim” Dempsey was born in 1934, and son, Jerome Alexander “Jerry” Dempsey was born in 1938. She named me after Jerome Kern, the songwriter, apparently because of her admiration for Jewish people.

Jerry Dempsey and his mother, Elaine "Babe" (Hodgins) Dempsey c1956.

She was a homemaker and Red Cross worker/volunteer throughout the Second World War years.

We lived in a small house at 871 Colborne Street until 1943.

871 Colborne Street, London (south of Grosvenor Street) as it looks many years after the Dempsey family lived here.

In 1943, we moved further north to 1008 Wellington Street where we lived until 1963.

1008 Wellington Street, London (between Huron Street & Regent Street). Photo taken in 2018.

I recall my father, Harold Dempsey being a wonderful athlete and horseman but he disliked city life and business, and the commitment of marriage. He left our family for good about 1948. He died 3 November 1969 in Winnipeg.

Babe began full-time work—often double shifts—as a nurse at St. Mary’s Hospital in the north end of London, as a travellers’ aide worker at the Canadian National Railway (CN) station, and later as a child social worker in Woodstock. She even worked as a waitress for awhile to help pay the mortgage. She also supervised the Sunday school at the church we attended: St. John the Evangelist Anglican Church.

St. John the Evangelist Anglican Church at the corner of St. James Street and Wellington Street; one of the oldest parishes in London.

Our home also served as a boarding house with a fascinating parade of low-income boarders for about 14 years who provided male role models for my brother, Jim and me, and provided a daily source of outrageous humor.

Thanks to my mother’s work ethic, Jim and I never felt deprived of anything throughout our childhood and adolescence. She was dedicated to our welfare, happiness, and college educations.

Her sisters and brothers—including her niece, Elaine (Dauncey) McTavish, named after her—were a very large part of our lives. I recall my really humorous uncles, Bill Hodgins and George Hodgins, who were constantly fixing things around our house, and my favorite aunt, Gladys (Hodgins) Luker, known as Glad.

Babe's sister "Glad"

We spent most holiday celebrations at “Glad’s.” Glad joined us on our special summer vacations consisting of a long weekend in Detroit, with me and a friend at Detroit Tigers ballgames, and Babe and Glad shopping.

Frequent family parties included Uncle George Hodgins on the fiddle, and Babe leading the dancing with the Irish Washerwoman jig.

In the late 1950s, Babe purchased a cottage in Port Stanley, Ontario. Every weekend thereafter there was a constant party with her neighbors and friends.

Port Stanley, south of London on the north shore of Lake Erie

In 1968, Babe married Rayburn “Ray” Crosby (born 1903), a butcher from Woodstock, Ontario. They purchased a small, concrete-block home in Sarasota, Florida and spent winters there. Ray died 7 January 1970 in Florida.

Sarasota, Florida

She was a loving and outrageous grandmother to Jim’s and my children for over 20 years. The grandkids love recalling their hilarious times with “Grammy E”.

Babe worked and volunteered for the American Cancer Society in Sarasota, and she would persuade her wealthy boyfriends to chauffer cancer patients to the blood bank, and take me golfing at their fancy country clubs when I visited.

She was awarded “Woman of the Year” in the 1970s for her volunteer work in Sarasota.

She spent her summers in London at Becher Street near her sister Glad’s, and later in a high-rise apartment on Oxford Street.

She died at her home of heart failure in December 1985 at age 83. Her ashes were buried along with her second husband, Ray Crosby at St. James Cemetery, Clandeboye, north of Lucan. 

My mother lived a very rich life devoted to her family, for sure, but also serving hundreds of less fortunate adults and children in southwestern Ontario and Florida.

ELAINE VICTORIA “BABE” HODGINS' FAMILY TREE:

Ancestors:

John Culbert & Mary Ward (great-grandparents)

Sarah Culbert & Philip Crawley (grandparents)

Sarah Catherine Crawley & Samuel Hill Hodgins (parents)

Descendants (Children):

James Harold “Jim” Dempsey (1934-2017)

Jerome Alexander “Jerry” Dempsey