James Forbes Hickson

            We are gathered this morning to bear witness to our faith in the resurrection, the resurrection of all who are buried in Jesus Christ our Lord and the resurrection of James Forbes Hickson. Jim died on Wednesday afternoon. He was 95.

            Jim Hickson was a native of Lynchburg, Virginia.  Born in 1912, he was the eighth of nine children of Fields and William Henry Hickson.  Jim’s father was a native of Canada who had settled in Lynchburg in the 19^th century and begun a family owned lumber company.  The elder Hickson was a strict, old-style Presbyterian, and raised his children to observe the Sabbath and engaged in regular devotions and Bible study.

            Jim entered the University of Virginia when he was sixteen, studying first in the college and then taking a year in the medical school.  By then the depths of the depression were driving many young men out of college, Jim included. He enlisted in the US Army for a two year stint.  This early army career was principally distinguished by a non-combat injury of a broken leg Jim sustained when a country Baptist preacher ran Jim – and the motorcycle he was riding – off the road. He was air evacuated to Walter Reed Hospital in Washington.  This was an early such transport. The medics accompanying him strapped a parachute to his gurney and advised him, “In the event of engine trouble, we will push you out the back of the plane and you will have to pull the ripcord yourself.”

            After two years in the army, Jim returned to work in the family business.  When America entered World War II, Jim re-enlisted to become a glider pilot.  When that program was discontinued, Jim transferred to the Medical Corps, where he was commissioned a 2^nd Lieutenant and given an assignment of processing wounded soldiers.  While serving in the battle of Okinawa, however, Jim left the processing behind and led a contingent to rescue wounded soldiers from an advanced detachment. He was awarded the Silver Star for gallantry in the battle of Okinawa for rescuing wounded fellow soldiers under heavy enemy fire.

            After the war Jim worked in Virginia and then in South Carolina and back in Virginia.  While on business in Petersburg held a party to introduce Jim to a young war widow who had lost her husband during the war.  Jim and Rena hit it off right away, but after an unhappy first marriage, Jim was a little reluctant to marry too quickly.  Within two years, however, they married in Richmond and enjoyed 59 years together, and had three children.

            Jim and Rena settled in Richmond and Jim worked as sales representative in the construction materials industry, first for SDG and later, Construction Specialties, from which he eventually retired.  In 1953 the young family settled in Bon Air, and under Jim’s watchful eye, constructed a streamside home on Jimmy Winters Road.

            Jim loved nature and the countryside of his native Virginia. He hiked all of the Bon Air countryside before it developed into suburban sprawl.  He fly-fished in Virginia streams. He collected wildflower and fern specimens and pressed them for preservation.  The lady slipper was his favorite flower.  On the lot of their Bon Air home he established a fern and wildflower garden with specimens he had collected.

            Jim was also an accomplished woodworker, who enjoyed projects with friends and making furniture himself.  If his wood and construction projects benefited the church or some agency of compassion, so much the better.  Jim enjoyed music and singing, and would have agreed with St Augustine, “The one who sings prays twice.”  But he might have added, “The artisan whose handiwork benefits others prays thrice.”

            Jim passed on to his family the deeply held faith he had received in his home. Not with the Calvinist purity of his father, perhaps, but with a sense of joy and wonder at God’s work in our lives.  Jim had learned a number of old Negro spirituals in his youth, and he shared them with his children as both musical compositions and religious expressions.

            Jim Hickson did carry his father’s protestant work ethic.  He worked hard.  And long – he worked way past the normal retirement age.  He was industrious and vigilant with his finances, and passed on that wisdom to his children.  He practiced generosity and taught his family to do the same.

            The center of Jim’s life was his faith in Jesus Christ and his love for the church.  Born and baptized a Presbyterian, he never departed from the teachings and lived faith of the reformed tradition.  Jim and Rena joined Bon Air Presbyterian in 1954. Here Jim served terms as a deacon and an elder.  He served as a teller. He delivered Meals on Wheels and supported the Richmond AIDS ministry.  He actively was involved in the maintenance of the church property and in the church’s ministries of compassion as well.  Jim was an original member of the church’s Memorial Garden Committee, and took great pride in the development of the garden as a holy place of natural beauty and remembrance.

            A quiet and modest man, Jim Hickson was a Virginia Christian gentleman in the best sense of that expression.  The love of his life was his wife Rena and his children.  Our love and sympathy go out to you now.

            Jim Hickson was preceded in death by his parents and eight siblings, and his son, James Forbes Hickson Jr. He is survived by his wife of 59 years, Rena May Hickson, and his daughters, Frances Vincent Hahn of Santa Barbara, California, Kathryn Ann Hickson of Glen Arm, Maryland, and Mary Forbes Hickson of Lynchburg, Virginia. Also surviving are nephews, Richard Conway Bowen and Harry Bowen, as well as other nephews and nieces, and beloved friends and neighbors.

            Now, having gathered for our mutual support and to hear and receive the comfort of the scriptures, let us worship God:

R. Charles Grant

Bon Air Presbyterian Church

Richmond, VA

February 16, 2008