Anita Josephine Hood

anita hood
Anita Josephine Hood (Nee Hall)

Born in Wimbledon, England, November 23, 1937 died in Alexandria, Virginia on January 4, 2022.

Anita J. Hood, proud wife of Donald, mother of Robert and Kenneth, grandmother of Sydney, Zachary and Robert E., great grandmother of Madilyn and Everleigh. Also known as Queen Mum to 100’s of Soccer Referees in the DMV area and around the world.

Anita was an introvert, (unless you were a complaining Soccer team coach or you had turned up late for your assigned match, then all bets were off), a long-term contract employee with the U.S. Customs Service. Writer, Editor and Publisher of organizational newsletters.

Born and raised in England by elderly parents George and Gurtrude Hall, both ardent Royalist. Her early life was not without hardship, she was a rebel. She and Don married in March 1957 and moved to Montreal, Canada, then to Boston, MA, Heidelburg, Germany for a while then back to Boston and finally settling in Virginia in 1976. Anita was a devoted Wife, Mother, Confidant, Mate, best Friend, Mother-in-Law and family Matriarch. She was not a Feminist, she claimed that “She got what she wanted in her own way.”

Anita formed DARK ASSOCIATES 40 plus years ago and started her Referee Assigning career, over time she assigned over 154,000 individual assignments, inducted into the Virginia/DC Soccer Hall of Fame in 2018 in recognition of her work in support of the sport.

Her most annoying habits, according to Don, were her ability to speed read and retain what she had read, recalling names and phone numbers from years past and her ability to change the subject when there were disagreements.

Her most ardent wish was to be a good mother-in-law to Dinah and Evelyn.

Rest in Peace, you have earned it.

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Guestbook

  1. The Owners and Staff at the Money and King Funeral Home, wish to express our sincere sympathy to you. It is our hope that we may be able to make a difficult time more bearable. Please feel free to call us anytime as we are always available to you. Bob Gallagher Funeral Director

  2. This seems so appropriate since you were always larger than life in my youth. Please hug my mom. Prayers and love to your family.

  3. Anita came to Virginia at early in my refereeing career. She and I probably had hundreds of calls over years.. hard to imagine what assigning was like when it was all done by phone (no email, no arbiter)… always great to work with.. Anita had a tremendous impact on soccer in our area. She will be missed. To her family: know that she was loved by many… Ben Glass

  4. Jeanne Taylor of Hopkinton Massachusetts has many fond memories of funny antics including hiding scratches on a car with brown shoe polish! She is thought of fondly and will be missed.

  5. I had the absolute pleasure of working with Anita beginning in July 1986 at the U.S. Customs Service (USCS) Data Center in Alexandria, Va, where we immediately became friends. She was beautiful, smart, kind, loving, and definitely funny. We worked in the front office and had so much fun everyday executing the many duties we had that it should have been a crime that we were being paid. One of the duties we handled was in-processing of new personnel at the Data Center, where all perspective new personnel had to have Background Investigations (BI) done along with fingerprinting. Anita was the expert in reviewing BI paperwork and fingerprinting personnel. In fact, she taught me everything she knew in this area. Anita would quickly and thoroughly review BI paperwork prepared by individuals and find all sorts of errors, having the person correct them before submission to the USCS BI Office to begin the BI process. To this day, I can still see Anita going to the closet to retrieve that huge fingerprinting machine; that was her baby!!! I watched her on countless occasions preparing that fingerprinting machine to fingerprint people. Back then, Anita had to use a typewriter to type the person’s information on the fingerprint forms. Then she would put the fingerprint forms in the slots in the fingerprinting machine and then place the precise amount of ink onto the area of the fingerprinting machine for ink and take her roller to rollout the ink until she was satisfied with how it looked. Now Anita was ready to begin fingerprinting. This is when the fun began!!! (At least for me, because I would just sit and watch her in action!!!) Anita would announce to the person that she was ready to fingerprint them. Then she would explain in detail everything she was about to do and tell the individual to let her do all the work and to relax their fingers. Well, when Anita would get a person who was not allowing her to do the work, she would stop; look at them with the “Anita look,” which if you knew Anita, you know exactly the look that I am talking about! (I must have received that look a million times over the years!!!). Then she would tell them to stop moving their fingers before they mess up the fingerprinting!!! All I could do when that happened was laugh and tell the person that they had better listen to her!!! Anita was in her zone and expected complete cooperation!!! She really made it all look so easy, but it was truly a talent that she had with rolling the perfect fingerprints. Everyone would always request Anita to do their fingerprints when they had to renew their BI because they knew they would be done perfectly, without being rejected by the USCS BI office. When we would get calls from the USCS BI office informing us that the fingerprint cards were being rejected, the first thing they would say was that we should have had Anita do the fingerprinting because her fingerprinting was never rejected!!! That was just one of the many stories that I remember and cherish about working with Anita. She was definitely passionate about her work across all venues, and you knew when she meant business. Whenever Anita had a job that needed to get done, she was going to get it done no matter what and certainly nothing short of her standards. Even though Anita and I didn’t work in the same office after some years, we remained close friends and would enjoy walking together during lunch on many occasions. I loved and admired Anita for many reasons. But the main reason is the love that she had for her family. Anita was so proud of her family and would always share the wonderful things that Donald was doing or what was happening with her sons and all of her family. I will never forget when Anita became a grandmother. When Anita first showed me a picture of Sydney and I told her that Sydney looked just like her. All I could see was a great big smile and tears of joy come to her eyes! I will never forget you Anita and I am so grateful to have known you!!! May you rest in Heaven!!! My condolences to Donald and the family. I will keep you all in my prayers. Very Sincerely, Karen M. Caldwell

  6. Anita was my referee assignor, and my friend. For many years, her inimitable voice ordered my weeks and weekends, calling me to pick up my kit bag and head for a field. She was caring, funny, persistent and always available when needed. I offer my condolences to her family, and mourn her passing. Greg Lathrop State Referee Emeritus (retired).


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