Hickman shares stories
Billie Hickman of Pea Ridge recently shared stories from her past.
Born July 12, 1922, she grew up in Okmulgee, Okla., where she graduated from high school in 1940. World War II started not long after that, she noted.
She married J.B. Prater one year out of high school. Her first child was born in 1942 and her second was born in 1944. She worked for the draft board in Okmulgee in the 1940s. Hickman got her pilot’s license while living in Okmulgee. She said the airport there was a government airport.
“I wanted to fly. I just loved anything like that. I enjoyed travel more than most anything,” she said.
After the war she worked at an aircraft plant in Tulsa. After she divorced her first husband, she meet Roger Hickman, a Pea Ridge native, while working at
the aircraft plant. They married in 1954 and moved to Pea Ridge in 1960. While living in Pea Ridge, Hickman had a travel trailer and took her family with her on trips around the country. She went to the wheat fields of Kansas; the rodeo at Cheyenne, Wyo.; Estes Park, Colo.; and the Black Hills of South Dakota.
“I traveled nearly every summer. I worked during this time but used my vacation for travel,” she said.
Next she worked in Rogers for an insurance office for about 18 years. Then she was a clerk for Pea Ridge City Hall for seven years. She retired and, at age 63, went back to work for various government offices in Bentonville. She retired from there in November 1989.
In December 1989, she went to Seoul, South Korea, for Christmas to visit her son, Randy Hickman, who was stationed there with the Army. She got to visit the DMZ and see the first Hickman grandson.
“That was a very special trip,” she said.
She has also made six trips to Hawaii because Randy Hickman was stationed there with the Army. The last trip she made was on her 90th birthday, she said.
Since retirement, Hickman has been involved in some volunteer jobs. She was a charter member of the Pea Ridge Historical Society and was very active until she had to retire, she said.
“I am a Christian, a member of the Twelve Corners Baptist Church,” she said. “I am unable to attend church now, but we have a small group that meets (at her home) for Bible study once a week.”
Hickman has three children, seven grandchildren, nine great-grandchildren and five great-great-grandchildren.
“I love it that so many of my grandchildren have decided to settle right here.”