Many Thanks goes to Brenda Thomas who contributed this Historical Sketch

MR & MRS. H. STEPHEN HICKS came to Chase County from Missouri just after the Civil War, 1866, or thereabouts. This was about the time the Rector and Mike Nowlan families came and they were all related.

Mrs. Hicks was born a Rector, sister to Alfred Rector and Mrs. Jane Fincher. Mr. Hicks, a widower with one son, met Mrs. Boyd, a widow with two children; they married and raised a family of their own, so the relationship were slightly complex. None of these sons and daughters was born in Kansas, so far as this writer knows. Mr. Hicks located on land south of Mike Nowlan's and the Nancy Ann White place. He was the last home on the head of South Fork in Chase County. He farmed and raised some livestock- horses, hogs and cattle. He lived on this farm until his children were married and in homes of their own. Then he sold the farm about 1886 and he and Mrs. Hicks went to Florida to rais oranges. I have no idea as to when or where they crossed the Great Divide.

The son of H.S. Hicks was John, who married Hannah Lake, sister of Mrs. D.W. Mercer. They were married March 9, 1874, by C.C. Whitson, Probate Judge.

(Historian's note: The obituary of John Hicks, who died at Emporia, July 12, 1932, says that he was born November 24, 1851, at Gate Center, Missouri, and came with his parents to Chase County, Ks. in 1863. John moved his family to Emporia in 1898.)

The son and daughter of Mrs. H.S. Hicks were:

Z.T.(Taylor) Hicks who married Josephine Banks daughter of Frank Banks.

Generva who married Michael Nowlan.

The sons and daughter of Mr. and Mrs. H.S. Hicks were:

Alonzo who married Lou Golay,

Columbus who married Annie Bray,

Annie who married Billy Williams.

(I have a faint recollection of a Theodore Hicks, Older than this last group, but I cannot place him.-Clara Brandley Hildebrand)