FRED HOOD presents to Mound City a splendid example of brilliant young manhood, who at the early age of thirty-three has accomplished that which many have failed to attain in a life time of effort. As state's attorney for Pulaski county he occupies an enviable position in the political affairs of his city and county, and he is steadily mounting higher in the pathway of success.
Fred Hood was born in Johnson county, Illinois, March 31, 1878. He is the son of James W. Hood, who at the time of the birth of Fred was a merchant in New Burnside, Illinois, having come to Illinois from Hardeman county, Tennessee. James W. Hood was born in Alabama, in 1839. "When he came to Illinois in the year 1862 he settled at Mount Pleasant, Union county, later passing on to New Burnside. He was a member of the old and aristocratic family of Hoods of South Carolina, his father also having "been a James Hood, who passed away in Union county, Illinois, in the year 1882, and who was the father of thirteen children, from whom a dozen new families have sprung.
As a young man James Hood, the .father of our subject, was engaged in merchandising, and the towns of New Burnside and Olmstead, the latter his present home, have known him intimately throughout the entire course of his business life. He married Victoria Maxey, a daughter of an early settler from Tennessee, then engaged in the farming industry in Union county, Illinois. Mrs. Hood having been born in Tennessee in 1854. She, however, is the second wife of her husband, he having a daughter, Mrs. Virginia Martin, of Olmstead, Illinois, the product of an earlier marriage. His union with Victoria Maxey was blessed with three sons-. Fred, of whom we write; Harry, an attorney in Cairo, Illinois; and Barney, who died in the early days of his young manhood.
Fred Hood passed his boyhood days as a pupil of the common schools of his home town, and in the autumn of 1894, when he was sixteen years of age, he entered the Southern Illinois Normal School. The next year he became a student at the Southern Collegiate Institute at Albion, Illinois, and the year following that he completed a course in the Dixon Business College, at Dixon, Illinois. Thus equipped with a working knowledge of the technicalities of business, flanked by his common school training and his limited University experience, he took up the study of law in the office of Judge W. A. Wall, of Mound City. After reading with Judge Wall sufficiently to prepare him for entry at a law school, he entered the Northern Illinois College of Law at Dixon, Illinois, from which he was graduated in 1900, with the degree of Master of Laws.
At the close of his college career Mr. Hood found it expedient to supplement his finances in some manner, which he did by serving for two years as principal of the village of Olmstead schools. He then joined his brother Harry, and the two opened offices in Mound City, under the name of Hood & Hood, attorneys.
In the year 1904 Fred Hood was appointed to the office of master in chancery, a signal honor for one of his years and experience, in which capacity he served for one year and a half. He was elected city attorney in 1907, serving one term, and in 1908 was elected states attorney under a Republican administration. His constant affiliation with party affairs has brought him a wide acquaintance with state political leaders and other men of prominence, and it is but reasonable to assume that a career which has opened so auspiciously cannot fail to be crowned with the highest honors that his fellows can bestow.
Mr. Hood was married in Mound City, on September 1, 1909, to Miss Blanche Boyd, a daughter of Hon. Thomas Boyd, a lawyer and banker of that city. Mrs. Hood is a young woman who is well fitted to assist her husband most efficiently in the many duties devolving of necessity upon a man of his position. One son, Frederick, Jr., has been born of their union.
Mr. Hood is a member of Caledonia Lodge, No. 47, A. F. & A. M., and is its past master, having represented it in the Illinois Grand Lodge. He is also a Knight of Pythias and member of Modern Woodmen of America, as well as being a member of the Congregational church of Mound City.
Extracted from A History of Southern Illinois, 1912, Volume 2, page 752-753
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