Kelvin “Kelly” Hodel- My “Irish Twin” Brother-A Short Introduction and Bio on His Remarkable Life

2/22/2023
Birch Bay, Washington

Just tonight I received a fun recording of my “Irish Twin” brother, Kelvin “Kelly” Hodel giving a short talk about his experience as a Navy Corpsman, attached to the Marines in the late 1950s. I had never heard it and really enjoyed hearing him give his first-person harrowing account of a few days back circa 1960. (See below link to hear him read his nine-minute narration.)

Kelly Hodel narrates a jumping-off point in his teen years. Click HERE. 

My younger brother’s given name was George Kelvin Hodel, (named after our father), and was born in Los Angeles on October 4, 1942. (Our mother shortly after his birth only spoke his name as “Kelvin”, which as he grew older became “Kelly”. My older brother Michael and I would not discover his first name was actually “George” until I, in my research, obtained a copy of his birth certificate which was quite late in both our lives. (Only now can we understand why our mother, with the knowledge that she carried and buried deep in her heart,  had no desire for her third son to bear the name of our father.)

My brother, Kelly, just turned eighty and only eleven months younger than myself, lives with his wife, Angel in West Los Angeles.

Kelly and Angel

I would here like to take this opportunity to introduce my readers to my brother Kelly and give you a deeper understanding of a brother that I love and respect and who has lived a very unique and fun-filled life, which like all of us Hodel’s, has not been without its ‘challenges.”

Of we three brothers, Michael (the eldest born in ’39; myself born in ’41, and Kelvin born in ’42), Kelly was the natural-born charmer and the one that always got the girls.  Movie star handsome, the number of hearts he broke growing up can never be counted.

 Below are three separate photographs each taken by well-known modernist artists of the “Hodel Boys”. (Galka Scheyer; Man Ray; Edmund Teske.)

Photo by Galka Scheyer (Kelly center)   Photo by Man Ray (Kelly left)        Photo by Edmund Teske (Kelly right)

Kelly age-32

Kelly with my son Michael early 1980s

Kelly and Steve circa 2004

I won’t attempt to bio my brother’s remarkable life other than to provide a few highlights of his remarkable service to our fellow Angelenos.

Born at Queen of Angeles Hospital near DTLA in 1942
Joined USN at seventeen to “see the world”
Married and had two children, Kelli Jean and David, with his first wife.
Lived life on the “cutting edge” in Venice, California as a young man in “The Sixties”
Gifted musician, played guitar, and wrote his own songs/ballads
Actively engaged in LA’s counter-culture and helped start most of the original “Free Clinics” in Los Angeles and became a Liaison-Administrator for LA County and lectured on the need for additional clinics throughout SoCal.

LA Times Oct 15, 1970

Attended college and obtained his RN and was employed at the LA VA Administration
Met and married fellow RN Angel and the two currently reside in West Los Angeles

With the passing of our father (suicide/pills at age 91) and mother (heart attack at age 76) and older brother Michael ( cancer in 1986 at the young age of 47) Kelly and I are privileged to be alive and to enter our Eighties together as witnesses to and the sharing of a most remarkable journey.

Much Love Bro.

Wikipedia Bio on Hodel Family photographer, Galka Scheyer  HERE

Wikipedia Bio on Hodel Family photographer, Man Ray HERE

Wikipedia Bio on Hodel Family photographer, Edmund Teske HERE

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