The Lickfolds of Mississippi
James (born 1858), the second son of Alfred and Caroline, was the first to come to Mississippi. The story that I remember said that he met Pearl Donkin in Cincinnati, where she was studying at a music conservatory. They fell in love and he followed her to Grenada, Mississippi, her hometown. James and Pearl had two children, George and Kate, neither of whom had children.
My Grandfather, Frederick, Sr. (born 1863) came to Mississippi to visit his brother, met and married my Grandmother, Camilla Hampton Stigler. [See newspaper account of the wedding] When his brother James died, Granddaddy purchased his jewelry store and operated it for many years, eventually passing it on to my father. [see The Oldest Business Man In Service] Granddaddy died November 28, 1951. [see obituary]
Granny and Granddaddy lived their entire lives in Grenada. They had four children, Blanche, Frederick, Jr., Charles Stigler and Eleanor. Granny died March 24, 1945. See Obituary.Blanche married Wormack Smith and lived in Hardy, MS. They had two children, Wormack, Jr., and Camilla. Camilla has two sons, John Richmon and Charles Edward. Wormack has two sons, Wormack III (Mickey) and Rodney Ray.
Frederick, Jr. married Daisy Leigh Roane. They lived in Grenada, where he owned the jewelry store that had previously been owned by James and Frederick, Sr.,. They had two children Frederick, III and Mary Sharp. Frederick, III has two daughters - Linda Leigh Lickfold, a computer engineering executive and Leslie Lickfold Hyland, a schoolteacher - and two sons - Frederick, IV ("Rich") a Lieutenant in the US Navy and Charles William, a computer engineer. Mary Sharp has two daughters, Camilla Roane Rayner Grantham, a college professor, Mary Whitney Rayner, a veterinarian, and Bradley Rayner, a college student.
Charles Stigler was killed in an automobile accident when he was a young man.
Eleanor (1917-1994) married James Gabbert of Senatobia, Miss., in 1941, and they lived in Senatobia for the remainder of their lives. They had four children: James Jr. ("Jim"), M. William ("Bill"), and twin daughters Gwen and Jill. Gwen and her husband, Larry Hogan, have three children: Lee and twins Mark and Betsy. Jill married Mike Ferguson, and they have two children: Wesley and Jennie. Jim and Bill are bachelors.
Remembrances of Granddaddy, Frederick Lickfold, Sr.
By Camilla Powell, Blanche Lickfold Smith's daughter
Granddaddy left Canada and moved to Detroit where he worked for a few years. Uncle James [Frederick's brother "Jim"], Kate and George's father, was a traveling salesman (they were called "drummers" back then), and Grenada [Mississippi] was in his territory. He called on the jewelry store there (I do not know the name) and during his business trips there he met and married Pearl Donkin. Well, Granddaddy decided he would go down and visit them and this was during the late summer or early fall--in fact cotton in the fields had opened and when he saw it he first thought it was snow!!
Granddaddy said that Grenada was the most God forsaken place he had ever been to or seen in his entire life. Streets were nothing but thick mud and sounded as though it was that old red clay mud. When it rained it would get "gooey" and stick to your shoes and anything else it came in contact with! Well, after a few weeks visit Granddaddy was more than ready to board the train and head back to Detroit--BUT--during his few weeks there, Uncle James became pretty sick and since he now owned the jewelry store he asked Granddaddy if he wouldn't please stay through the winter and run the business for him. Before the end of the winter, Uncle James died and in the meantime Granddaddy had met and fallen in love with Granny [Camilla Hampton Stigler] so he decided to buy the store from his sister-in-law and stay.
Now, there was this one problem--Granddaddy was engaged to a "woman" in Detroit, in fact had given her an engagement ring, SO--what must he do about this situation. Well, just like a "male" he wrote this poor woman and told her he would like to have the ring back as he now wanted to give her a much larger diamond, and like a "silly" woman she fell for it and sent the ring to him. Then he wrote and told her he had met another woman and was going to marry her, which as we two know is exactly what he did!!
As far as how long and when he lived in Massie--I am not at all sure of this. I know he was born in Bayfield, Canada. When I went to Canada a number of years ago, we crossed into Canada at Port Huron and drove up the coast. We went through Bayfield and as we were coming abound a curve I saw this really pretty stream of water, I even took a picture which I still have, and when I told him about it he said he use to ice skate to school on that stream of water. Then I do remember his saying they moved around quite a bit, as a matter of fact most of the children were born in different towns throughout Ontario.
When my Mother and your Father were quite young--maybe your Dad was two and my Mother seven-- Granddaddy and Granny visited our Great Grandparents who were living in Massie at that time. Also, when Granddaddy and Granny went to Canada on their honeymoon, his folks were living at Massie then too.
As you probably know Granddaddy was quite an ice skater and had his skates with him, but told me he was only able to use them two or three times, as it never got cold enough for the ice to freeze thick enough for safe skating. However, because of this he turned to roller skating, and my Mother use to tell me about a place on the square, opposite the original Lickfold store, that upstairs in one of the building, was a skating rink. They would pile straight back chairs on top of one another and he would skate around and jump over the stacked chairs. Well, all the people were so excited with this display of such great showmanship that Granddaddy became quite the hero and the talk of the town.
In the beginning of World War II there was a scrap iron drive, and much to my disappointment Granddaddy gave his ice skates to the cause. I was upset with him, because I wanted to keep them but they were gone before he told me. I would dearly love to have them now!
He was a wonderful man and I adored him. I used to go fishing with him when I was, according to him, too young to fish, but not too young to row the boat so he could fish--well, I thought that was just great. I fished with him a lot through my younger years (pole fished), and when his eyesight started failing, he would take his cork and paint it white so he could see it.