December 30

 Ulysses Fillmore Hicks was born 30 December 1886 

Shiloh Battlefield, Hardin County, Tennessee

Ulysses was my great-grandfather.

He was the son of John Henry Hicks and Malisa Evaline Burns Hicks

I honestly feel inadequate to properly honor Ulysses Hicks with a simple blog post. He was a most remarkable man. He and Annie were both remarkable people, and they reared 9 children who also fit that description. I was privileged to be able to know them while they were still living. Grandma and Papa Hicks and their offspring were the major influence in my life while I was growing up.

Ruby, Cleffie (my grandmother), Evalee, Vernell, Bernice, and Lowell, with their families, all lived near us in Berrien County, Michigan, during my childhood. Irene lived in Missouri, Elvin lived in California, Olan lived in Arkansas, so we didn't see them as often, although they did come to Michigan occasionally, or we went south to visit them. Elvin is the only one I don't have any memories of.

Here is what my great-grandmother Annie Arnold Hicks wrote in her memoirs:

I married Ulysses Hicks February 22, 1910.  

PHOTO: Ulys and Annie, George (Annie's brother) and Jessie Arnold. 1910.

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.  

PHOTO: Crossroads School, 1915. Ulysses Hicks, teacher.

  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.

PHOTO: Ulys and Annie with their 9 children, Ruby's husband Arvil Barnett and daughter Oma Dell. 1930. 

  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.

PHOTO: Ulys and Annie at the farm

PHOTO: Ulys and Annie at their house in Benton Harbor. 

This is where they lived during my childhood. Their daughter Bernice and her daughter Cindy lived in a little apartment they made for them in the upstairs part of the house after Bernice and her husband were divorced.

Annie and Ulys 1954

A few notes from Wathada (my mother):

When my grandparents, Ulysses “Ulys” and Annie hicks first moved to Bridgman, in Berrien county, Michigan in May 1942, they found there wasn’t a Church of Christ in all of southwestern Michigan...

 They found an ad in the newspaper (News Palladium in Benton Harbor) asking for anyone who was interested in starting a congregation of the Church of Christ... Ulys answered the ad, and he and four or five other men and their families started the Church of Christ in southwestern Michigan.  Ulys was a very good singer, so he led singing most of the time.  He taught a course every once in a while on reading and singing by shaped notes.  He was also a very good preacher.  He never “preached at” us, but he was a teacher, and he was so good at that.  Everyone loved to hear him preach. He used charts pretty often when he preached, so he could lead the congregation visually through his sermon. In 1952, there were so many people coming to church from Coloma, Watervliet, Hartford and that whole area, that they decided they needed to have a congregation in  that vicinity.   So with the blessings of the Benton Harbor congregation, we started having church in Watervliet.  Ulys was retired and he agreed to preach for the Watervliet congregation for one year, with no salary.  The congregation rented an apartment in Watervliet for Ulys and Annie to live in during that year.  

[On a personal note -- My parents lived in that same apartment when I was born.]

Ulysses Hicks passed away in 1965 at the age of 79 years. 

Annie Hicks passed away in 1972 at the age of 78 years.