Ruth (JENSEN) HICKOK

JENSEN, HICKOK, ANDERSON, HACKBART, GANTZ, DEAN

Posted By: Sharon R. Becker (email)
Date: 2/21/2011 at 22:00:07

Obituary - Ruth Jensen Hickok

The Globe Gazette
Mason City, Iowa
Wednesday, November 26, 2004

BUFFALO CENTER — Ruth JENSEN HICKOK died Sunday [Nov. 23, 2003] at the Titonka Care Center, Titonka.

Services will be held at 11 a.m. today at the Buffalo Center Methodist Church.

Agnes B. ANDERSON was born in New York City on Aug. 25, 1912. She was placed in The Brooklyn Nursery & Infants Hospital as a toddler.

In 1917, The Christian Aid Society brought her to Forest City as part of the Orphan Train movement. She arrived in Forest City on Oct. 9, 1917, and was adopted by Mr. and Mrs. T. E. JENSEN. Her name was changed at that time to Ruth Agnes JENSEN.

Ruth attended Forest City schools. She married Orville HICKOK of Hayfield in 1931. Orville's employment with the Rock Island Railroad necessitated their move to various Iowa communities, including Hayfield, Oelwein and Washington.

Upon Orville's retirement from the railroad in 1952, the couple moved to Buffalo Center and took up farming on a JENSEN family farm, from which they retired in 1972.

After Orville's death, Ruth lived at Prairie View Retirement Apartments in Garner for a number of years, and for the last four years had been at the Titonka Care Center.

Ruth was passionate about her Orphan Train experience and presented programs about it to more than 50 schools and various groups. She was the subject of numerous newspaper articles and seven books about the Orphan Train.

Ruth was preceded in death by her husband, Orville, in 1991; her parents; and three brothers, Robert, Raymond, and Paul.

She is survived by a son, Jerry and his wife, JoAnn, of West Des Moines; and a daughter, Carolyn and her husband, Dennis HACKBART, of Little Rock, Ark.

She leaves behind four grandchildren, Karen HICKOK GANTZ of Polk City, Marilyn HICKOK of West Des Moines, Pamela HACKBART DEAN of Covington, Ga. and Mike HACKBART of Little Rock, Ark.; and two great-grandchildren, Patrick and Benjamin DEAN, as well as host of family and friends.

Transcription by Sharon R. Becker, February of 2011