On This Day in Family History - February 3

 

Ulysses Fillmore Hicks died 03 February 1965

This is a photo I received recently from my cousin Mary Schermer. I had never seen it before.

Here is a cropped and enhanced version:

The man on the left is my great-grandfather Ulysses Fillmore Hicks. The man on the right I believe is Marlie Arnold. Marlie was the brother of Ulysses' wife (my great-grandmother Annie Arnold Hicks).

Even though the photograph is aged and damaged, it is still a treasure! 

Back left: Ulysses' brother Felix, Felix's wife and baby, Ulysses

Front L-R: Ulysses' parents John Henry and Malisa Hicks, David Hicks (Ulysses' brother)

This is a postcard Ulys' sent to Annie in 1909, before they were married. The man on the left is Ulysses, right is Will Anderson. He wrote on the back of the card "I promised this to someone. Was it you?"

L-R: Ulysses and Annie, Annie's brother George and his wife Jessie Tamsett. This picture was taken in 1910, the year both couples were married. 

Ulysses and Annie with daughter Ruby, 1912

In his lifetime, Ulysses Hicks was a farmer, jeweler and watchmaker, photographer, school teacher, preacher, music teacher (he taught shaped-note singing), and a factory worker. Here is what Annie wrote:

We had ten children. The first (a boy) was born dead April 18,1911.  We were married February 22, 1910.  I would have been 17 years old February 25.  Ulys was 23 years old.  We spent the first year after we were married at Macon, Tennessee making a share crop, mostly cotton.  Then we came back to the hills in Arkansas and stayed one year, then moved to Judsonia, Arkansas where Ruby was born in 1912, and Ulys worked all winter in Judsonia, some at the cotton gin, and some for the dray man.  Then we moved to Bliss, Arkansas and Ulys went to teaching school again.  He taught one school before we were married.  He didn’t like school teaching very well, but he taught about 15 years at one place and another.  He taught in one room school houses with all eight grades. In the fall of 1919, we moved back to Judsonia.  In February, 1920 Elvin was born.  Irene and Cleffie was born in the hills of Arkansas, close to Banner P.O.  We lived around Judsonia and Bald Knob till 1941 and we came to Michigan.  For several years before we came to Michigan, we had a photo studio and jewelry shop.  We made our living that way through the 1930’s (depression).  All through the depression there was a family of 10 of us.  Sometimes we hit it pretty hard, but we always had three meals a day somehow.  Quite a few people were in a poorer condition than we were.  We worked hard and managed, and got by O.K. When we came to Michigan, we worked on a farm in 1941 and 1942.  In the fall of ’42 we got jobs in the shops and the children went to school at Bridgman, and we drove to Benton Harbor to work.   In the summer of 1943, we rented an apartment at 120 Sixth Street in Benton Harbor and stayed there six years.  In the meantime, in 1945 we bought a 20 acre farm about 20 miles south of Benton Harbor.  We rented the farm out for three years, then we moved on it and Ulys quit working in the shop but I kept working till 1953.  Ulys worked in the shop till 1948.  He got so disabled that we sold the farm and bought a house in Benton Harbor at 602 Empire.  He didn’t work any more, but I worked about two years more.  We bought the house in Benton Harbor the fall of 1951.