OBITUARY Merriman H Hudgins Jr. January 5, 1936 – October 21, 2018 Merriman Houston “Herb” Hudgins, Jr. Merriman Houston Hudgins, Jr., 82, of Stafford, VA, went home to be with the Lord on Oct. 21, 2018, following a long illness. Herb, as he was known to his friends, was born Jan.
5, 1936, in Ocean View, VA, to his parents, Merriman Hudgins, Sr. and Sally Cake Hudgins. As a little boy a family friend nicknamed him “The Jeep” because he was always climbing on walls and fences like Popeye the Sailor’s cartoon dog. Friends and family often said he could be seen walking on his hands more than on his feet, and his mother enjoyed sharing proof of that in the many photos she kept of her three boys – Herb and his younger brothers, Jim and Jack.
Growing up in the post-WWII period he was a patriotic American who enlisted in the Army in 1956 as a way to support his countrymen in the Korean War. Fortunately for his loved ones, peace was declared before he completed basic training, but he stayed on for four years, training as a medic and paratrooper. After the Army he attended college, then moved to Washington, DC, where he taught gymnastics at the local YMCA.
At this time, he also met his future wife, Irene “Dee” Childers, who survives him after 56 years of marriage. After they were married he trained to become an optician, eventually owning and operating his own optical shop until retiring in the mid-2000’s. Never one to sit still for very long, Herb also had many hobbies over the years.
Among them, canoeing, woodworking, motorcycle riding, reading historic and other non-fiction works, westerns and historic biographical movies, and listening and studying classical and contemporary music. For a time he served as Membership Secretary for the Alexandria Chapter of the Izaak Walton League in Stafford Co He also enjoyed his friends and co-members of the Virginia Retreads Motorcycle Club, touring up and down the east coast on their bike trips, enjoying the open road and many historic locales together.
Herb loved being an uncle and a grandfather too. When his children, his niece and nephew were all young children, he loved playing with them, teaching them little magic tricks, and making up funny stories to make them laugh. He loved jokes, and his family teased him often about telling his favorites over and over again, though he still made them funny even on the 600th telling.
Not a lot of people get to live as much of life as Herb did, and he was always encouraging everyone around him to do just that – live more – do everything – soak it all up. He was very blessed to have had all of the opportunities and experiences he had, and was very grateful for them. In addition to his wife, Dee, Herb is survived by his brother and sister-in-law, James and Barbara Hudgins of Spotsylvania Co., his daughter, Karen Lambert, of Little Rock, AR, and his daughter, Bonnie Martin, of Caroline Co., who, with her nursing background, dedicated herself entirely to his care and well-being for the last two years as he battled the effects of a stroke.
His brother, John Hudgins, son, Jeffrey Hudgins, and grandson, Justin Carney, all preceded him in death, losses which weighed heavily on his heart for the remaining years of his life. He is joined with them again in Heaven now, and it is this thought that we, his family, will be most comforted by.
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