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- [S24] The Newport Plain Talk, (http://www.newportplaintalk.com), 6 Nov 2004.
Georgia A. Hicks, age 86, of Newport, passed away Saturday, November 6, 2004, at Mariner Health of Newport.
She was a member of Allen’s Missionary Baptist Church.
She was preceded in death by her husband, Gay Hicks; son, Billy John Hicks; parents, Austin and Jettie Stuart; sister, Gena B. Allen, Kate Mooneyham, Fairy Townsend, and Velmo Herman; and brother, Edd Stuart.
She is survived by her son and daughter-in-law, Bob and Judy Hicks; son, Ben Hicks; daughter-in-law, Argell Hicks; grandchildren, Susan and husband Riley Ball, Joey Hicks, Robbie and wife Jamie Hicks, and Brad Hicks; great-grandchildren, Gracie Hicks, Olivia Hicks, and McKala Fox; special friends, Margie and Wilbur Mathis, Peachy Cody, Polly Murrell, Daisy Allen, Winnie Carrell, Kathleen O’Dell, and J.B. Conard, all of Newport.
She will be sadly missed by her family and friends.
Funeral services were held 2:00 p.m. Monday in Manes Funeral Home Chapel with the Rev. Cleo Williamson and the Rev. Leon Large officiating with burial in Union Cemetery.
The family received friends from 6:00 p.m. until 9:00 p.m. Sunday at Manes Funeral Home.
Manes Funeral Home in charge.
- [S24] The Newport Plain Talk, (http://www.newportplaintalk.com), 9 Nov 2004.
The woman many people knew as the “Pumpkin” lady, because of her bright display of fall pumpkins and gourds along Wilton Springs Road, died Saturday afternoon.
Georgia Hicks was best described as a country mother who was a friend to everyone and married to Gay Hicks, who served on the Cocke County Legislative Body (County Court) for more than 18 years.
She would have been 87 on her birthday, Dec. 21 and was born in the Lower Bogard community of Cocke County. She was the daughter of Austin Stuart and Jettie Murrell Stuart.
In 1935, she married Gay Hicks and they moved into a two-room house that no longer exists next to their lifetime home off Wilton Springs Road. They lived in the small white frame house since 1950.
Gay Hicks farmed all his life aided by Georgia, who also joined him during the fall to pick apples for Kyle Carver. She would sell apples with Marjorie Fancher Carver along the Cosby Hwy. Carver’s famous apple stand.
During the years, they had three sons: Bill, Bob, and Ben. Bill died of lung and brain cancer about 1997. Gay Hicks died in a tractor accident March 13, 1981. Son, Bob, who still assists selling pumpkins, is disabled because of a muscle-nerve disease.
Despite tragedy and hardships she worked to keep the family farm going with the help of her sons. It was almost an accident that she got into the business of selling pumpkins.
In the 1960s she would select some field pumpkins that her husband planted with the corn. Those not fed to the hogs, she would place in their front yard to sell. Later she set up a table with a container so tourists and locals could pick a pumpkin and leave the money.
In the 1970s, her grandson, Robbie–Bob and Judy Hicks’ son–helped her plant crops of bright orange jack-o-lantern pumpkins. Later she added more varieties and gourds.
In the fall, her yard was a carpet of varied colored pumpkins and gourds. In recent years, Bob and Judy Hicks sold the pumpkins from their house across the highway from Georgia’s yard. But she continued her gardening and flower growing.
She was known as a good cook, excellent seamstress and quilt maker, helped prepare molasses in the fall, and continued to witch for wells into her 80s.
Always, her door was open to her grandchildren: Robbie, Brad, Susan, and Joey–and great grandchildren: Gracie, Olivia and McKayla.
She loved conversation and helping in the community, attending Allen’s Missionary Baptist Church in Dark Hollow.
In her senior years she developed diabetes and heart health problems and had to get special care at Mariner Health Care Center in the last weeks of her life.
Her gardening and selling pumpkins gained a small amount of money for the family and earned her many a new friend who stopped to buy a pumpkin, but mostly to visit with Georgia.
- [S147] Find a Grave, (Memorial: 49138008).
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