HICKS - JONES

 

The Hicks line can trace their ancestry all the way back seven generations, several ways! When Joe Hicks married Flo Jones, it was actually the partnership of the Hicks - Eady / Baker - Payne families with the Jones - Toel /Frans - Jones families. Florence Jones Hicks had Jones on both sides of her family. It went something like this:
 

Hicks

On the Baker side, The Hicks can be traced back to the marriage of a Whitson and a Willett, seven generations ago, who parented a Mary Caroline Whitson. She married a Joab Payne and they had 8 children including Mary Caroline Payne (b. 1848- d. 1926 @ Waco,TX). The siblings were William, Ben, Lush, Sally, Sue, France, & Lou.

W. R. Baker, about 1861

 

W. R. Baker brought this powder horn home after the Civil War... and we found it hanging in the Hicks' garage right before they sold their home. Of course we begged for it... It is thought that since W. R.'s middle name was Richard and his nickname was "Dick," this explains the initials..

Mary Caroline Payne married William Richard Baker (b. @ Miss, 1842- d. 1915, TX), son of James and Mary Marrs Baker (James also had Joseph, Mark & Sally by previous m.) in 1862, in the middle of the Civil War.  His siblings were Winfred, James & John. William served in the Confederacy.  From my research I THINK I can say with confidence that W. R. and his brother James served together in Carroll's Company C, of the 18th Battalion Mississippi Cavalry, known as Chalmers' Battalion, placing them in an elite Rebel fighting force.

General Nathan Bedford Forrest C.S.A.

Company C was the cavalry escort for General Chalmers, and saw action fighting under General Nathan Bedford Forrest all over Mississippi and Alabama. They also served in Tennessee under General John Bell Hood.

A part of a painting by John Paul Strain called Vengeance at Okolona.

 

The Baker boys would have seen action at Nashville, Fort Pillow and Maplesville, Alabama, where they fought hand to hand with the Union soldiers of the 17th Indiana Cavalry of Wilder's Brigade .  At the time of their parole, there were few men left. The family has two photographs of W. R. Baker in his Confederate uniform, and his powder horn. 

William and Mary Baker had many children including a daughter Josephine Gertrude Baker born in Water Valley, Mississippi in 1876, (siblings Lora, Mollie, Katherine not found) and Charles Richard (b.1887-d.1949), also possibly a Madison (b.1878- d.1901)) and Mary (1873- 1911) all found @ Greenwood Cemetery in Texas.  Many of the Baker graves can be found at the old Greenwood Cemetery, in Waco (Bellmeade).  There appears to be W. R.'s  brother John A. Baker (b.1857-) and his wife Pauline (b.1863- d.1923) buried there as well.

Josephine Baker married John Ferman Milton Hicks in 1901 in Tyler, Texas. This marriage produced four sons, including the Hardy children’s grandfather, Joel Langston Hicks. More on him later. She passed away in Waco in 1951.

The Hicks name also has a deep genealogy, going back to John Eady Sr., born in 1756 in Ireland, who came to Georgia, USA where his bones now rest, since 1845.  He and his spouse Margaret had a son John Eady Jr., (born 1811- d. 1883) in Wilkinson County, Georgia.

John married Frances Louisa Murphy (b.1824-  d.1878) and they had a daughter Ruth Elizabeth Eady (b. 1856 in Bloodworth, GA).

The school in Bloodworth, Ga.

 

Ruth came to TEXAS after marrying *William Madison Hicks (b. 1852 – d. 1919 @ Sulphur Springs, TX) in 1874. These were the parents of John Milton Ferman Hicks (b. 1876, Wilkinson Co, GA, d. 1912, @ Waco, TX). William Madison Hicks was the son of Daniel Hicks (b. 1818 m. 1844 to Sarah Ann Meadows, b.1825), who was killed in the Civil War.  Daniel Hicks was the son of John Hodgers Hicks, born in 1792 in South Carolina.

 

A Hicks-Eady  family reunion, about 1910.

John Milton Ferman Hicks, not long before he died.

*John Milton Ferman Hicks was a nurseryman and married Josephine Gertrude Baker (b. 1876, Water Valley, MI, d. 1951, @ Waco, TX) in 1901 in Tyler, Texas, and they were the parents of Reuben M., William Raymond, Albert Clyde and *Joel Langston Hicks.  John Hicks developed a new strain of rose which was patented by his employer. Josephine was a seamstress, but unfortunately John died in 1912 before his sons were grown and tragically Josephine had to put them in an orphanage.

Joe, Clyde, Raymond, Reuben and mother Josephine Hicks reunited in better years.

*Joel Langston Hicks was born in Waco in 1908, and died in Enid, OK in 1988. He married Florence Eva Jones in 1938.  These were my wife Linda’s maternal grandparents.

Joel Hicks in uniform while serving as a carpenter in the "Seabees."

We knew them simply as “Pounce” and Joe.  Joe Hicks enlisted in the “Seabees” Construction Battalion during WWII, and served at Guadalcanal, where he eventually came down with Malaria.  He was sent to recover at Honolulu and finally Norman, Oklahoma. He was an engineer, and built public buildings and  bridges all over the southwest. They had four children:

Joe and Florence Hicks and their children; Katherine, Jimmy, Billie and Patricia.

*Patricia Ann, (b. 11/4/31) m. Allan Ray hardy, (b. 3/12/30)

James Lee, (b. 8/27/33)

James Lee "Jimmy" Hicks while serving as a tailgunner in the Navy Air Corp During the Korean conflict.

Katherine Elizabeth (b. 3/15/37)

Billie Joe: (b. 7/29/39)


 

Jones

*Lewis Toel, father of *Henry Toel, was a German, but his son brought his family to America around 1861 at the onset of the Civil War. Henry Toel had been a Lutheran minister in Germany, but started a newspaper in Indiana. 

 

"Bambien"

He had a daughter, *Sophia Maria Elisa Antonette Toel, who married *Lewis Jones, son of *James Jones. Lewis and Sophia Maria Elisa Antonette Toel Jones (known to the family later as “Bambien”) of course had children, or we would not be reading about them.  There was Roy and Leonora, and *Henry Lewis. Cross-eyed and left-handed, Henry Lewis Jones, (b. 1873, Maryville, MO -  d. 1958, Wichita, KS), overcame many obstacles in life, in spite of the low expectations of his parents.

Henry Lewis and Adda Jones.

Although his siblings were sent to school, he was put to work on the family farm after the 8^th grade.  He married *Adda Florence Frans, who could also trace her family back several generations. Little could Adda know she was in for a wild ride!

Cherokee Strip Land Rush in 1893.

 

Henry Lewis and his father-in-law Augustus Frans ran the Cherokee Strip together, staking land near Kingfisher, Oklahoma. They started a general mercantile there which eventually was bankrupted by overdue credit accounts. Henry and Adda had two daughters, *Florence Eva Jones and Beula Beatrice.

Henry worked at Newman’s clothing store and as a night watchman in later years, and had saved a good deal, but lost everything during the bank failures of the Great Depression. Florence earned a scholarship to Oklahoma College for Women and attended one year before trying her hand at teaching. She then worked at the Enid Public Library until she met *Joe Hicks, whom she married within two weeks!

Florence Eva Jones Hicks (Pounce) holds daughter Patricia, with grandparents Lewis and Sophia Jones.

Beula Beatrice Jones (b. 4/1/1910) married Robert F. Humeston (b. 4/9/1910).  Had 2 daughters, Jo Elisa and Mary Emily

 

Frans

William Frans of yesteryear had a son William Frans Jr., who married Rebecca Spires and they had a son, Augustus Spires Frans (b.1852 – d.1937).  Augustus married Clara Isabel “Clarabel” Jones (b. 1857- d. 1914), and they had seven children including Adda Florence Frans.  (siblings were Theodore, William, twins Maude May & Claude, Ernest and Callie. Adda was Florence Eva Jones Hicks’ mother, my wife’s great-grandmother.

Joe Hicks holds daughter Billie, Henry Jones, Florence Hicks, sister Beula Humeston, Patricia Ann Hicks in front with bro Jim with finger in his nose, Katherine; Behind: [possibly Adda's sisters?] _, _, Adda Frans Jones & Robert Humeston?


 

 

Jones (Frans side)

*Clara Isabel Jones also had a deep ancestry, the daughter of *Ambrose Jones and *Sarah Dunlap. Ambrose’ father was *William Jones. Sarah Dunlap’s father was *James Dunlap.

Augustus and Clara Isabel Jones Frans were the parents of *Adda Florence Frans, who married *Henry Lewis Jones. They were the parents of *Florence Eva Jones Hicks, (b.1907, @ Kingfisher, OK - d. 1987 @ Waco, TX). 

 

 

Adda Frans Jones and mother-in-law Sophia Maria Elisa Antonette Toel Jones.