Wordless Wednesday

Cliff and Sally Hicks (Sallie)

Harold Clifford Hicks (1895-1967) is brother to Robert Henry Hicks Sr.

Looks like a baseball player?

Cliff's findagrave memorial # is 50051572
Sallie's findagrave memorial # is 50051601

             

Sentimental Sunday: Three Cartersville People Die in Collision 1950

My grandfather, Robert Stanley's older brother Woodrow was married to Bernice Willis. Bernice had been married previously to a John Scott. Bernice and John had one daughter, Inez.

Woodrow and Bernice

There are a lot of people in this picture. Back to Front Left to Right: Willena, Henry, Vesta, Bernice, Glen, Ralph, Larkin, Robert, Ed Harris, Jr., Woodrow, Clarence, Inez. 

When I first saw this picture, and saw that Inez was labeled here. I didn't know who she was. The only Inez I knew of was the little girl who burned from fire. I just came across an email from someone who found me on ancestry.com. This lady, Joyce, sent me an email telling me that Bernice's first husband was John Scott, and that she had a daughter Inez. That is when I remembered I had a picture of an Inez, and here it is. 

Joyce also sent me part of a copy of an article from the Weekly Tribune-News Cartersville, GA from January 12 1950. The article is titled Three Cartersville People Die in Collision. 

According to the article, on January 8th 1950 at 12:45 in the morning, Woodrow, Bernice, Bernice's mother and brother were riding in a 1936 Oldsmobile and were hit head on with a dump truck driven by a young 20 year old guy named Jack D. Rhoden.  Bernice's mother, Mrs. Lee Alton Willis Sr. (Etta) and Jack D Rhoden died at the scene of the accident on Canton Road. Bernice's brother, Bradley died about 4 hours later at the Howell-Quillian Clinic. Woodrow suffered a bad laceration on his head, mouth and lip and had bruises and abrasions. Both of Bernice's legs were broken in the accident. One in several places, and she also suffered severe lacerations, bruises and abrasions. 

Picture of the Car Wreck

Part of the article is missing. But it looks like Jack D Rhoden had a bad driving record. Mr. Rhoden's passenger, Fred Tolbert of Dahlonega said that Rhoden was driving the dump truck as fast as it would run and with no lights. Then the article is cut off. But another part on the side says that someone reported the dump truck as almost wrecking them on Christmas Eve. The article ends with "Mrs. Cantrell was returning to her home....when suddenly appeared from the south, and crashed into the rear of the Cantrell machine. Rhoden pleaded with Mrs. Can-  that is the end of the article.

It seems, Mr. Rhoden may have pleaded for Mrs. Cantrel to not call the police. But, if she had done so, and Rhoden had been sited, or had his license revoked, that maybe Bernice's mother and brother wouldn't have been killed.  I have emailed the newspaper, to see if they had a way to find the article for me, so I can get the missing information. I will update the article if they respond. 

Please leave a comment or email me if you have more information for this story. I also would like to know if Woodrow and Bernice ever had children. I would like to know where they are buried too. I have a date of death for Woodrow as January 28 1989, but I'm not sure where I got that information from.

FINDAGRAVE.COM

Etta Willis memorial page is #36297967 

Jasper Bradley Willis's memorial page is #36297973 

I believe that Inez's memorial page is #36291216 

I haven't found Woodrow or Bernice's memorial page yet, if they have one that is. 

Larkin, JR, Woodrow's head, Robert, Vester (Vesta) 

plus another little boy. Does anyone know who it is?

4 Hicks babies

Great Grandaddy and Great Grandmother (Robert Henry and Vesta) had four babies that died during infancy.

In a previous post, I spoke about Inez Hicks. She died from burns when she caught fire in 1928. I always assumed she died immediately, but unfortunately her death certificate states that she lived a for a few hours.
There were three other babies that were born and then died before Inez was born.

There was Aron A Hicks. According to the Family Bible, he was born in Whitfield County Georgia on March 22 1911. Vesta would have been 5 days shy of her 18th birthday. (Robert was 18 and Vesta 16 when they married).

Then there was Annie Lee who was born on December 31 1912 also in Whitfield County Georgia. I have her as "Carrie Lee" in my Family Tree Maker program. I'm not sure where I got that from. I am going to have to do some digging through the files to see where that came from. But, the family bible, has hand written "Annie Lee" so I think that is probably correct.

Aron and Annie both died in the same year, just months apart from each other. According to the family bible, Annie passed first on February 3 1913, she wasn't even 2 months old. Then Aron passed on June 3 1913, he would have been 2 years old.

Then there was Ira E Hicks, named after Vesta's brother Ira. The family bible shows that he was born on January 12 1919 and that he died on February 27th 1919, only 1 month old. I have found his death certificate through the Virtual Vault from the Georgia Archives website. It says that he passed from "Bronchial Pneumonia" The copy I have is of a low quality, but I think it also says that a contributing factor was Measles.

I am still looking for death certificates for Annie and Aron. I am also looking for burials on findagrave.com and billiongraves.com for all four of the children. I haven't been able to find them on any site. 

As far as I know, there are no photographs of Aron, Annie, or Ira. But, last year we discovered a treasure box of photographs in the house where Robert Henry and Vesta lived, and later Uncle Bob. There are a lot of unidentified baby photographs. One of them is this postmortem photograph.

If this is a Hicks baby, it looks like it might be a boy because it looks like he is wearing a jacket instead of a dress. This baby looks about 2 years old, doesn't he? If so, this could be Aron. This picture has a post card on the back. In the corner where the stamp would go is a manufacturer's mark "CYKO" in fancy text. That mark was used between 1904 - 1920s. Therefore, it does correspond to the time of little Aron's death.

Mystery Photo

This is a mystery photo that was found in Robert Henry Hicks Sr. 's home after Uncle Bob (Robert Henry Hicks Jr) had passed away. Uncle Bob had been living at the old homestead, in Stockbridge Georgia for many many years. 

On the back of this photograph is written "Mrs. Willena Harris" . 

At first glance, one might assume that Willena is in this picture. I beg to differ. 

First, this picture dates to about 1908 - 1912. I base this information on the first girl standing on the left. Her hair is done in the "Gibson Girl" fashion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibson_Girl. Both the first girl and the second have sort of puffed sleeves that are more fitted toward the bottom. This type of dress, with the high collar and puffed sleeves were "in fashion" around 1910. 

So, how do I know Willena isn't in this picture? The first and most important reason is that Willena wasn't born until 1914. Secondly it says Willena Harris on the back. Which means she came into possession of this photograph after she was married. 

I would still like to find out who is in this picture. One clue I can use is the empty chair. The empty place tells me that someone is missing, or away, or deceased. I am going to assume that the mother/wife is deceased. So, my next step will be to try and figure out if anyone had a missing wife in the 1910 census. But, I don't know where to start. Perhaps the Georgia census? Or maybe some other state? I don't know yet. 

If you have a suggestion let me know. 

I thought maybe it could be Larkin Hicks (Great Grandaddy's father) but then I remembered they had a lot of boys and this picture has more girls.  This could be a Hunsucker family photo as it was found with other Hunsucker photographs. Aaron Hunsucker (Great Grandmother's father) was a widower, so that could account for the empty chair. But, as far as I know, when his wife Mary died, they only had two children; Vesta and Ira. Therefore, there are too many children in the photograph to be them. Though the dates would match if one of the younger girls is Vesta and one of the boys is Ira. 

Or it could be a Harris family photograph, since the back has Willena Harris....

This mystery might take a while to solve.

Short Story from one of Dad's texts he sent the other night when we were texting about money problems

Dad (middle) said that "Grandpa" wouldn't let him, Byron and Van have some coke bottles to turn in to get 25 cents so they could go buy a BB pack. Grandpa said they might need that 25cents one day. 

Robert Henry Hicks "Grandpa"

Inez Hicks

Inez Hicks was my grandfather's sister. (1925 - 1928) At some point, my grandfather got this picture of Inez from Great Granddaddy's House. Then, Aunt Linda had it for awhile til' she handed it down to me. It is the only picture of her that I know about. She died when she was only 2, so probably not long after this picture was taken.

We were always told that she died because she was playing with matches and caught herself on fire. I recently found a copy of her death certificate from the Virtual Vault on the Georgia Archives website. 

The death certificate says "accidental death" and it says she lived for a "few hours" afterwards. It also states that she is buried at the "West Hill Cemetery" but no one has her listed on Findagrave.com . I will have to contact someone who has actual records from the cemetery to see what they have. It is a giant cemetery in Dalton Georgia.

The second page is from Vital Statistics. It says that her "clothing caught on fire from an *** grate" . I can't tell what the word is. It looks like "son" "or "jon" or "fon" . I don't know what it is. But, it doesn't look like she was playing with matches.  UPDATE: a friend suggested it might say "open grate". Makes sense to me!

I don't know if it is true or not, but we were always told that Uncle Bob saw what happened and tried to help her, but was unable to. 

At the last family reunion, I got a copy of this picture of Willena Hicks, the only sister who survived to adulthood. It is similar to Inez's picture. The are both in oval frames that are in sort of a bubble glass. Willena was born in 1914 though, so she was already about 10 or 11 years old before Inez was born.  The quality of Willena's piture is better and she is wearing more expensive clothing than Inez. She also has shoes on, and Inez does not. It makes me wonder if Great Grandaddy and Great Grandmother had more money early on, or if they were just more strapped for cash in 1925 because they had more children. (4 surviving at that time)