When Gil Hudson was born, July 7, 1896, the name "automobile" hadn't been settled upon, although there were about 50 automobile companies in existence, and the first American gasoline-powered one or them had been created by Duryea three years before.
Gil began his trade when he was 12 years old. That was the year, 1908, the Model T came out, but Hudson technically started on a Maxwell. One day old Bessie Mae chattered her way into Hudson's repair stall, hydrau-lic valves gnashing their teeth. Another mechanic removed the valve cover, studied the situation and said he couldn't tell which ones were making the racket. GILBERT LAWRENCE HUDS0N, D.I.A.M. (honorary Doctor of Internal Auto-motive Mechanics hereby conferred) peered through his bi-focals under the hood and said, "Hmh. Umnnh. Mnnh. Hmh." With a quart of sweat, the car doctor cured the patient.
Gilbert is one of 12 children of a West Virginia lumberman, from the Alum Creek Area of Kanawha County. "I was always mechanically inclined and wanted to work on some kind of machinery, I was always tearing up a piece of machinery on my grandfather's farm near Charleston. W.Va., and seeing how it was made. One day this guy opened a blacksmith shop and auto repair shop (you had to have both those days), and I dropped by going home from school and watched him over-haul a Model T Ford engine. He took notice I watched so close. He asked my name and would I like to be a mechanic. I said, "I sure would!" He said he needed a helper and could use me if I had permission to work. I was 12 years old."
When he finished high school In 1914, he went to auto school in Chicago, beginning on the Maxwell. Six months later he was back in Charleston, making 90 cents an hour, overhauling heavy equipment for a contractor. He enlisted in World War I, serving as Army instructor in auto mechanics until becoming a replacement with the Motor Transport, 71st Division. He was to go over-seas and received a commission as second lieutenant but 48 hours out on the Atlantic he learned the armistice had been declared. He had two new officers uniforms to sell, and he had not had a rifle in his hand.
Thereafter, Hudson was in and Out of the Civil Service. working at Erie Proving Ground in Ohio, Charleston Naval Ord-nance Plant, National Youth Administra-tion Automotive school, Portsmouth Navy Yard and Aberdeen Proving Grounds as shop foreman, supervisor and instructor. He inters-spliced these with various services with automobile firms and, once, with his own tune-up shop in Akron, Ohio, during the depression years of 1931-38.
As a career for boys today, it's a trade in which "you can always find a job if you are good and keep a good kit of tools. That's security. In the depression I was so busy two months after I opened my own shop, I had to hire another man to help me when Ironworkers and electricians were standing in bread lines. I've never been idle a day in my life. I'm afraid to quit," he said, for fear arthritis will cripple him up if he quits moving. A good mechanic should feel any job worth doing is worth doing right, so he won't have to be afraid of people coming back. He said, of his own satisfaction at taking up the trade. "It never really has gotten monotonous to me. it still fascinates me. I like doing a good tune-up to a car and hear it purr."
His wife Blanche Hudson and he have one child, Evelyn Amanda. They meet in Richwood, WV while he was boarding at Mrs. Hudson�s mother�s boarding house, he was working at Smitty�s Garage on Main Street.
After 64 years as a mechanic my great grandfather died. He worked up until the day he died in 1972. I wish he could have lived to see the technology in cars today. With computers cars now have more technology then the first Apollo rocket that went to the moon. He was working at a service station on "D" street, in South Charleston, WV when he died. He had to have prostate surgery and as he was leaving to go to the hospital my great grandmother said "he kicked up his hills as he was going out the door". The surgery didn�t go well it had to be stopped because he was bleeding and the bleeding couldn�t be stopped. He was took back to his room and died that night. He is buried in the Hudson Family Cemetery.