June 21

 HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO...

Jeanne Marie Hicks

Jeannie is my cousin... once removed, or something like that. I never have quite figured out how that goes...

Anyway, her father (Olan) and my grandmother (Cleffie) were brother and sister.

Photo: Annie and Ulysses Hicks on their 50th wedding anniversary, February 1960, with their nine children. L-R: Ruby, Cleffie, Irene, Lowell, Elvin, Olan, Vernell, Evalee, Bernice. 

In the days in which they were raising their children -- before vaccines and modern medicine -- it was something of a miracle to raise nine children to adulthood. Their first baby, a boy, was stillborn. But the odds of having nine of ten children survive into adulthood, and even old age, were astronomical. Only one of their grown children, Elvin, can be said to have died young -- at age 54.

 Ruby 1912-2004 age 91

Irene 1915-2002 age 87

Cleffie 1917-2004 age 87

Elvin 1920-1974 age 54

Evalee 1922-1995 age 73

Vernell 1925-2007 age 82

Olan 1927-2019 age 92

Bernice 1929-2016 age 87

Lowell 1930-2018 age 88

Olan, my cousin Jeannie's father, was the last one of the siblings to pass over, at age 92, just a little more than a year ago. His wife Barbara followed him a few months later.

Photo: Olan and Barbara Hicks with Clint, Jeanne, and Chuck.

Happy birthday, Jeannie.