UNKNOWN

Hodee Edward's Autobiography 1988 tells the story of the first 73 years of my mother's life lived on three continents, North America, Africa and Europe. I came to her story searching for understanding of why she wrote her 1978 book Labor Aristocracy, Mass Base of Social Democracy, which Estuary Press is republishing this year 2024 in a second edition.

Her autobiography takes you on a journey across vast social, political and geographical spaces, starting with her privileged origins in a wealthy Jewish family in Boston, where she was taught to make up her own mind and never be afraid to tell it like it is. She went to Radcliffe before it was officially part of Harvard and graduated with honors in physics. She discovered Marxism and the Communist movement of the 1930 and joined up. She met her husband, Harvey Richards, a merchant seaman with an 8^th grade education who was also a Communist Party member. They moved to the West Coast where she had two sons. She wrote war news for the Communist Party newspaper the Daily People's World under a man's name. Divorcing after the war, she remarried another member of the CP, an Afro American man, George Edwards. They quit the CP but nevertheless suffered the harassment of the racist anti-communist 1950s. Disillusioned, they left the USA for Ghana in West Africa in 1961 with their 11 year old daughter to lend their support to the newly independent nation. George worked as a plumber there and Hodee resumed her journalism career. She left Ghana after her marriage broke up and after the 1966 coup against Nkrumah isolated her from any further work as a journalist. After six years in London, she returned to the West Coast.

Her autobiography first appeared as part of a 1987 Frank family reunion of her mother's side of her family. The reunion organizers put together a book called "Frank Family Reunion Book" with contributions from all participants. Most people wrote a paragraph or maybe even a page. Hodee wrote a 50 page (8 1/2 x 11) story of her life. At the time in 1988, I did not read it. Not until I wondered about the origins of Labor Aristocracy. It is a fascinating account of her remarkable life up to her 73rd year.