A Woman I Respect
I know. Everyone who has read the last post thinks that this post will be about my wife, Sally. It could be but it is not. It is not about my mother (who I will get to some day), or my grandmother who I covered briefly in my post on my grandfather, William Lowell Smith. It is about her mother, Minnie Alice Hicok. She was born in Williamston, Michigan on May 22, 1866. She died on November 22, 1910 in Waverly, Iowa. She was 44 years old.
Her parents were Charles Bliss Hicok and Sarah Ann Bement who were both born in upstate New York. I know some of the travels of these two ancestors of mine on their way to Nashua, Iowa. This, too, shall wait for another day.
Minnie’s self portrait from Jan 25, 1883. Three years later she married Fred Parks on Dec 22, 1886. She was 20 years old.
Minnie Hicok self portrait as a junior in high school.
Fred and Minnie get married
Fred and Minnie Marriage license
Fred Parks owned a pair of horse: Dick and Dan and a Democrat wagon. This is a wagon made as a buggy in front; but the back is extended like a wagon. A seat could be added to make three seats or could be stored in front to be used as a wagon.
Soon after the wedding. they packed the back end of the wagon with food and bedding and started for Ord, Nebraska. Since they were married December 22 and the distance of 500 miles and 20 miles a day is a good pace for man and beast. I am wondering how they got there and when. I've been told hat they arrived the first of March. In time to put in crops, at least.
Things of interest I’ve been told: There were no trees and no rocks in Nebraska where Fred and Minnie lived. Mother made kraut and father sent her to find a rock to hold the kraut down. She ended up with a piece of coal. A man stopped and talked with mother. His baby had died and he wanted mother to walk to his place and stay with his wife while he was gone to town for a preacher. There were not flowers but mother picked dog fennel. With a shoe box lid, she made a cross and covered it with the fern-like leaves and laid the white fennel flowers to made the cross. She walked five miles to her neighbors house. As soon as the woman saw my mother. she started to walk toward my mother. When they met they were in each others arms. Mother showed her the cross she had made and amid her sobs, the mother said. 'Now my little darling will have a flower.
It was tough going for mother in new country. She told of the high winds: the living alone away from her parents: my father working in the field for himself and for others. She being pregnant and was sick a lot.
As told by Hazel Parks Smith.
Cecil William Parks was born in Ord, Nebraska in 1889. The next official act was the birth of my grandmother, Hazel, in 1891 back in Nashua. I remember her telling stories about these times.
Fred died of gangrene after an accident splitting wood in 1895. I have the receipt for Fred’s grave purchase as well as other depressing documents from this time,… that is if you want more information on the effects of the death of a 34 year old man on his family in 1895.
