8. Mother And Dad

John Fredrick Hickman was the first child and only son of William Alpheus and Alice May. Of course he had a half-brother, Otto Ray Gustaffson, who was more than 8 ½ years his senior. The third child was Ruby Mildred, and therein lies a special story in itself.

Ruby was struck with polio, called infantile paralysis in those days, at an early age and was crippled for the rest of her life. But she could get around with the aid of braces and crutches and was determined to live her life to the fullest extent possible. She was an avid reader and not only completed high school but also earned a Bachelor’s degree from Coe College and continued her studies at the University of Iowa where she obtained a Doctor’s degree. Her Doctor’s degree thesis resulted in a book called “Ghostly Etiquette on the Classical Stage.” She worked for a while at the Linn County Abstract office, but soon moved to Chicago where she became an editor of foreign language books for Scott Foresman & Co. She traveled extensively in her younger years, to Europe and the American West. Ruby was very well liked wherever she went and always had a nice smile on her face. She was one of a kind.

John Fredrick was known as Fred, bringing to mind the old naming practices of long ago. He was about 5’ 10” tall and had dark hair, which he combed straight back as was popular in those years. Iowa passed a law in 1902 requiring all children between ages of 7 and 16 to attend school. Fred decided that was all he personally needed, and after he completed the 10^th grade at Grant High School, he decided to quit, get a job, and make some money. This was just after the end of the First World War, the Roaring Twenties were about to begin, the Prohibition Amendment and Women’s Suffrage were soon passed, and the first air mail flight landed in Iowa. It was not a time for a young man to stay in school, unless of course he was a child of the privileged few, expected to attend the University and become a mover and shaker in the soon booming economy. He was hired by the Sinclair Meat Packing Company, later to become Wilson & Co. where he worked until his retirement to Phoenix, Arizona.

Working meant earning some money in order to buy some of the newer things that were coming out. Shortly after he had the job, in a letter to his “little sister” Ruby, he told her of a new radio he heard about which was “real fine.” He wondered if she would join him in investing a few dollars to buy this electronic wonder and knowing her she probably complied. Lucile Fegley also attended Grant High School and lived on 6^th street in the same part of town and attended the same church, St. James. She was a little older than Fred and it’s no coincidence that she was graduating at about the time he was quitting. They began to see a lot of each other, playing tennis and going to the parks. It was at one such outing that Lucile fell in the water and Fred had to rescue her, saving her life. The story was on the front page of the local paper. Lucile remained deathly afraid of water and swimming for the rest of her life.

It wasn’t until 1924 that they were married, and in 1926 they purchased a bungalow on the 11^th street hill in northwest Cedar Rapids. Betty was born in 1928 and the Stock Market crashed the following year. The country was soon in the depths of The Great Depression, when thousands of people were out of a job, stood in breadlines, some committing suicide in the face of being penniless. Fred’s employer kept him on, resulting in his loyalty to them for the rest of his career. Despite the Depression, Bob was born in 1930 and this writer, Don, in 1932. This last was the absolute bottom point of the Depression itself, although some historians have felt that the Depression was never really routed until the great economic mobilization for World War II.

The family home was a very small “garlow”, which I personally maintain meant a combination of garage and bungalow. I felt that I remembered something about it being first useful as a bungalow and then when a full house could be built it could serve as a garage. Betty scoffs at this as being nonsense and perhaps she is right. In any event, due to the Depression there was no expanding and we lived in the “cozy” bungalow for many, many years. The saving grace was that it was situated on a good-sized lot where mother had a huge garden and several fruit trees as well as a chicken house and pen.

Dad was a loyal, hard working man. He was a clerk in the Plant Accounting Department and years later when I worked there in the summer I learned that he was held in great respect by everyone I met. He was a very early riser and arrived at work before 7:00 AM. He would then return home in late afternoon, matching the 7 to 3 labor shift. He was not an openly religious man and seldom, if ever, attended church. However, late in life he did invest in a rather deluxe Bible with passage cross-references in red ink. He did participate in some school sports before he left. He confided in me once that he had been a fast sprinter, his forte. During the war effort and the gas rationing, he rode his bike to work and back with no complaints. We lived on a hill and there were no bicycle gears in those days so he had to push his bike half way up the hill to get home.

He did like cars and loved to travel. He came home one day with a used Hupmobile and was so proud of the fact that it had such a great engine that you could slow it down to a few miles per hour in third gear, step on it, and it would pick right up without a gear change it was so efficient. On the other hand what I remember is that there was always trouble with the fuel pump and Dad would have to open the hood, detach a little tube, suck on it like a straw until the fuel came pouring out and then all was well. The tricky part was guessing exactly when the gas was going to rush into your mouth. A little inattention and you got a free gasoline tonic. That was when there were running boards. In the 40s he picked up a Willys-Overland 4 cylinder whose color was “sea foam green”. The family took the car on a long trip all over the West, but after it piled up the miles it began to crumble. He bought a blue ’49 Pontiac Silver Streak and that was the ultimate for him and was, as a matter of fact, a beautiful car with a very streamlined look to it. It was my senior year of high school and I pretty much took over the Willys until it practically fell apart.

Dad always had a thing about the American West. He had explored the possibility of moving to Los Angeles to work at the Wilson branch out there, but for whatever reason it never happened. He went out there on the train alone one year, and much later he and I drove out in the Willys. He finally got his wish after he retired. After Mother died he moved to Phoenix for his last years. He was a heavy smoker and it began to take its toll. He would smoke Pall Malls, Marlboros and pipes, but his trademark was rolling his own using Prince Albert tobacco or later Half and Half. I believe these were strong tobaccos intended primarily for pipes, but in any event he did eventually succumb to emphysema in his 65^th year.

Lucile was a complex person. She could be very loving but very temperamental. She read the newspaper from cover to cover and was always warning us about something and how to avoid trouble. Her favorite lead-in was something like: “There was a little boy once who ….. “ and broke a leg or otherwise got into trouble. She had varying talents. She could play the piano if she wanted to. It was something to see when she did. She had rhythym to burn and her whole body would practically bounce on the piano bench, while her notoriously stubby little fingers would pound away as she hammered out a polka or two. She was also a blazingly fast typist and used that skill early on when she worked at the Electric Light Company. During the war in the 40s, as many women did she worked on an electronic parts assembly line at Collins Radio, replete with metal lunch box and all.

But her passion was gardening. She had a huge garden with every conceivable vegetable and even most fruits plus flowers. The skill she had with plants of all kinds was phenomenal. I recall someone coming to our house and upon seeing the scads of African Violets in the windows exclaimed that she had never seen anything like it in her life. Even one African Violet plant apparently takes a lot of effort to nurture and here was a houseful! But her skill was never passed on because she couldn’t stand anyone else being in her beloved garden. When we kids would come out to see what she was doing or whatever, she would always warn us to be careful where we walked and never really relaxed until we got the H--- out of there. She grew sweet peas (flowers) on a large fence and a restaurant in town would buy as many of them as she could supply.

She was not a religious woman and didn’t attend church any more often than Dad. Nor was she a socialite, sticking pretty much to herself and her working and her hobbies. In later years she worked in a restaurant kitchen, and since she never drove a car and didn’t want to, she walked over a mile to the restaurant and back. She and Fred hardly ever went to a doctor. She probably had high blood pressure and died of a massive stroke in her 63^rd year. She had taken some cough medicine, and the ironic thing is that the label warned against taking it for people with hypertension. Ironic, that is, because she was always the one to warn others about watching out for such things since she had read in the paper that ………..

Fred and Lucile were buried at the Cedar Memorial Cemetery on 1^st Avenue East in Cedar Rapids.