On This Day in Family History - March 15

 Charlotte A. Hicks was born 15 March 1879

She was called "Tot" -- I always heard her referred to as "Aunt Tot" (Aunt pronounced like "ain't")

Aunt Tot was the sister of my great-grandfather Ulysses Hicks

Photo: Ulysses and Annie Hicks, Tot and Albert Williams

Aunt Tot married Albert Williams and they had five children -- Earl, Thomas, Dorothy, Dona, and Charlene. Dona and Charlene died in childhood -- I don't know anything else about them. Dorothy died at age 4 from being struck by lightning. (See anecdote below.)

The only one of these that I have a picture of is Tom:

Albert and Tot had a store in the front part of their house

Here is what my mother (Wathada) wrote about it -- 

AUNT TOT’S AND UNCLE ALBERT’S

 I remember going to Aunt Tot’s and Uncle Albert Williams’ house a few times when we lived in Judsonia.  I think they lived at Big Four at that time.  I was five years old and younger, because we left Judsonia when I was five.  They had a store in the front part of their house.  Mama says they had a country store in their house at several different places where they lived.  I know Aunt Tot always had cornbread at her house, and I’m sure she always gave us some to eat.  I hear two of my uncles (Lowell and Olan Hicks) talk about Aunt Tot’s cornbread yet today, even after all these years. They say she made the most wonderful, delicious cornbread.  But what I remember most is that store -- right there in the house!  Aunt Tot would take me into that store (I guess she took my little brother Morris too, if we had him then.)  And she would let me get some of the penny candy which she had right there in the front of the counter.  Well, I just couldn’t even imagine anything better than having a store like that in your very own house!

This is the only picture I have of Aunt Tot when she was young.

Photo: L-R: Cleffie, Evalee, Annie holding Vernell, Aunt Tot

Aunt Tot died 20 January 1956. Uncle Albert died in 1960.

They are buried in Providence cemetery, Judsonia, Arkansas

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Here's the story about Dorothy's death, as written by Cleffie Hicks Burford (daughter of Ulysses and Annie Hicks):

THE STORM

 

    My father was teaching school at “Big 4”, a little two room school about five miles out of Judsonia in the country.  He taught there for two years and this was his first year.  We lived about a mile from the school house.  I was four years old in August and the storm I’m going to tell about came on the 24th day of November.  The year was 1921. Papa, as we called our father, and both my sisters, Ruby and Irene, were at school.  Mama and my little brother, Elvin, and I were at home. I don’t remember exactly what time of day it happened but I think it was early afternoon.  Anyway, this big storm came up and before we knew what was happening it was raging something terrible.  I remember that Mama got Elvin and me on the bed and then she got on there with us.  We lay on the bed and watched out the window as the wind whipped the trees in fury, sometimes bending the trees almost to the ground and then suddenly flinging them back the other direction.  The rain was coming down like it would never stop, and the thunder and lightning was so close it was frightening.  Such a vicious storm I had never seen before. Mama tried not to let on that she was scared but I knew she was.  She told us not to touch the metal bedstead because metal can draw lightning, but she felt that being on the bed made us safer from the lightning as long as we didn’t touch the metal. So there we lay for what seemed like an eternity before the storm began to let up.  And then all of a sudden it was over.  What a relief!  But Mama was still worried about Papa and the girls.  There was no way to get in touch with them; no telephones or anything.  Even if there had been telephones they would all be out of order now. The storm would have all the lines down. Mama was getting more anxious all the time, in fact, she was walking back and forth by this time, looking in the direction of the school house.  Pretty soon the neighbor boy came running by on his way home from school and yelled out that there had been “a bad storm today and a lot of people were killed.”  Well, that just about finished Mama off.  But just about that time here came Papa and the girls.  Talk about relief!  Mama was so relieved even I could feel it. However, there was a sad note in their arrival.  Papa said that someone had come to the school house after the storm and told him that his niece Dorothy Williams had been struck with lightning and killed.  She was Aunt Tot’s and Uncle Albert’s daughter and was something like 6½  months older than me.  Anyway, Papa turned out school early and came home. Mama was so upset with the neighbor boy for telling such a big “fib” and scaring her almost to death she just wanted to shake him real hard.  Of course, she never did say anything to him about it that I know of.  I don’t know what possessed him to say that a “lot” of people got killed. Dorothy had been standing by her daddy, who was sitting in a rocking chair in front of the fireplace, with her hand on his knee when the lightning struck the corner of the house right by the fireplace and, of course, struck her at the same time. It almost killed her daddy, but they worked with him and he got alright. The doctor pronounced Dorothy dead.  But Aunt Tot told us years later that her body never did get cold.  She was still warm when they buried her.  Aunt Tot thought it was odd but didn’t say anything because she didn’t know but what that was normal.  Later she said if it was to do over she would say something.  The doctor probably didn’t know she stayed warm.  He most likely didn’t see her again after he pronounced her dead.