Ted Hodgkins, an Annapolis Naval Academy graduate, married Ruth Hodgkins (no relation) and settled in our neighborhood of Worcester, MA where he worked in sales management at The Paul Revere Life Insurance Co. I first met Ted when I joined the Company in 1968 and soon learned that he had bought puzzles from the Par Company, New York, NY back in the early 1960's. In fact, for a while he had been on the Par Co. list of customers who received a newly cut 800 p. Par puzzle each month. We assembled a few of them, and when after his wife died, Ted moved to Kennebunk Beach, ME, we kept in touch and I catelogued his collection for him. After Ted's death in 1999, I was fortunate enough to be able to buy the entire lot of 32 Par puzzles. Every puzzle but one ("I and my Village") is personalized with the initials of Ruth Hodgkins ("RGH" or "RH") cleverly cut or stenciled on in various ways. One puzzle ("Lyin Quiet") also has the initials of Ted, "ERH".. And because Ted and Ruth liked color line cutting, the puzzles tend to have more of this than other Pars and are semi-color line cut. All Par puzzles are made of special order, mahogany backed plywood and are fully interlocking. Many of them have stenciled in gold 2 seahorse designs used on the Company stationary. Nearly all have one or two figures of sea horses cut into the puzzle as Par signature pieces. Few carry the artist's name, either because it never was on the print or was cut off by the cutting for irregular edges. The collection is a wonderful view into the "world of Par" during that era, showing types of pictures selected and cutting styles employed.
