Hicks Ancestors - Generation 4 - Dorothy Lena Williams

But first... I found a little more information about Thomas Henry Williams since yesterday's post:

Here is what Annie Hicks wrote --

The most of Charlotte’s (Tot - Ulys’ sister) children died in babyhood, but two of them lived to be grown.  But one (Tom) died at the age of about 30 years.  He lost his mind, I suppose from a lick on the head.  He fell from upstairs straight down and hit the floor with his head in babyhood.  Then after he was 25 years old someone hit him on the head and left him for dead and someone else found him in a corn field, unconscious.  So all that, I guess, injured his mind and caused a blood clot on his brain or something, maybe a tumor.  Anyway, he died in the asylum in Little Rock, Arkansas in about the year 1947.  His older brother (Earl) is still living now, 1957, in Ohio.            

Okay, now Dorothy.

Dorothy Lena Williams was born 18 January 1917 in Arkansas, and died 24 November 1921 in Caldwell Township, Independence County, Arkansas.

Dorothy was the daughter of Charlotte Hicks and Albert Franklin Williams.

Dorothy died 24 November 1921. Here is what Cleffie (my grandmother, Dorothy's cousin) wrote about Dorothy's death:

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 lightening 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 lightening, but she felt that being on the bed made us safer from the lightening 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.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Dorothy's parents had bought her a new pair of patent leather shoes for church. She wanted to wear them, but Aunt Tot told her she couldn't wear them until Sunday. Dorothy died before Sunday came, and they buried her in her new shoes. (And ever since then, it has been an unwritten rule in our family that if you get something new you are allowed to use it right away.)

Dorothy Lena Williams was buried in Providence Cemetery, Judsonia, White County, Arkansas.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Uncle Albert and Aunt Tot had at least two more daughters who died very young. According to family records they were named Dona and Charlene. I don't know when they were born, how long they lived, or how they died. They are not mentioned in any census that I've been able to find, but the 1910 census (before Dorothy was born) indicates that Aunt Tot had given birth to 6 babies, 2 of whom were living (Earl and Tom). There is an 8-year gap between Aunt Tot and Uncle Albert's marriage (1899) and Earl's birth (1907). And there is an 8-year gap between Tom's birth (1909) and Dorothy's birth (1917). Apparently, Aunt Tot lost 4 children before Earl and Tom were born. Most likely they were miscarried or stillborn. Stillborn babies were usually not named, back in those days before modern medicine, when infant mortality was high. It's likely there were more pregnancies between Tom and Dorothy. It's safe to assume that Dona and Charlene lived long enough to be given names, but I don't know if they were born before Earl and Tom, or between Tom and Dorothy. I'm also assuming Dorothy was the last child, though she might not have been. Aunt Tot would have been 38 years old when Dorothy was born. Well, whatever the details, it had to be a terrible heartache for them, for this healthy child, after so many losses, to have this freak event take her life.