The Shells of Pigeon Creek Genealogy Web Site
The ancestors, descendants, and cousins of the Shells of Pigeon Creek, Alabama.
Notes for Thermyl Juanita Lee
She was born at home in McKenzie, Alabama. She went to college at Livingston, Alabama and Troy State University in Troy, Alabama. She was a teacher at both school and life. When I was in grade school at Central, she was at one time first through third grade teacher, Principal, and bookkeeper. Mother was my Principal at Central, but never my school teacher.
The story of how she met Eual Victor Hickman as related to John Wayne and Cheryl Moore Hickman:
"I was teaching at Central School and boarding down at Mrs. Ruby Pryor's. Eual worked on a road crew for Butler County as a cook. They would be out for a week at a time, so a camp was set up for the work crew to have a place to eat and sleep. They would stay out during the week and come home on Friday for the weekend. On Saturday mornings there was no one at Mrs. Ruby's house, so I would go up to Samuel and Minnie Hickman's house to visit with their daughters Opal and Lessie. This was where I met Eual for the first time.
As our relationship developed, Eual would come home more often on weekends. When the girls would walk down to Oscar Burts on the weekends to get vegetables Eual would want to go along and we would walk and talk. Merle was courting Regger at that time, and one day when they were going to the picture show, Merle told Eual 'Why don't you ask Thermyl to go.' He did and all Eual wanted to do was talk about his girl friends. They had a party at Mama and Papa Hickman's and Eual came home instead of seeing the Jackson girl. She later wrote him a letter saying if you want to go with that Miss Lee then you can just do it.
He borrowed Merle's car and drove me home to McKenzie for Christmas in 1933. He came back and picked me up after Christmas. We courted mostly at Mama Hickman's house after I returned. I moved up from Mrs. Ruby's to board at Mama Hickman's. The school closed for the year in March that year when the money ran out and I went back to Livingston for a semester. Eual rode the bus to Montgomery just to ride back with me. The next year I taught at Sims School House and boarded with Fred and Pearly Knight. Eual was surveying for the county at that time building terraces as part of soil conservation.
We set the date to marry and my folks didn't even know. We got married at the parsonage at the First Baptist Church in Greenville on December 22, 1934. We moved in with Papa Hickman and I rode the school bus to Mt. Olive Church and walked two or three miles to the Sims School House. Eual was still surveying at this time. When the house was finished, we moved in. There was no ceiling at that time. Eual would go with James Wesley McClure all over the country buying hogs and Tennessee Walking Horses. We sold a calf to start the ceiling in the bedroom. Eual farmed a little, had hogs, registered Durocs, and didn't make any money.
He went to work for Butler Manufacturing Company and made friends with a machinist named Draper from up north. They would go fishing together. Draper taught Eual to be a machinist. When Butler Manufacturing moved down to Flomaton, Alabama Eual would go down on Monday and come back on Friday. He stayed with the Knowles Family while down there. When Butler Manufacturing would set out to get a new contract for shirts, Eual would do the production model. While working at Butler Manufacturing, he made a pocket maker to fold the pocket automatically when sewing the pocket on the shirt. He never received any thing for his invention and it showed up on the next Singer Model made.
When Littles Manufacturing Company opened in Greenville Eual went to work for them and worked there until he died in 1954.
(I asked Mother to give me more information on the story about building the house. I wanted to know about Mama Hickman and Mother washing the black off the boards. Who was the man that helped build the house? She never got around to giving me this information. JWH)
John Wayne Hickman. Descendants of John Hickman.
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