Floyd Thomas Hickman

Floyd Thomas Hickman

The following profile was researched and compiled by Candice L. Buchanan and Glenn J. R. T. Toothman III, for publication in "The Rain Day Boys: The Greene That Lay Near Grimpettes Woods" (2017). Learn more at RainDayBoys.com.

Birth: 13 February 1896 Millsboro, Washington County, Pennsylvania[i]

Parents: Lindsey McClelland Hickman and Cora Lee Fordyce[ii]

Residence at time of enlistment: Waynesburg, Greene County, Pennsylvania[iii]

Physical description: 5 feet 3 3/8 inches tall, florid complexion (i.e. red or flushed, rosy-cheeked), brown eyes, brown hair[iv]

Death: Killed in action 29 July 1918 Cierges, Picardie, France[v]

Age at death: 22 years old

Last resting place: 3 November 1923 Green Mount Cemetery, Waynesburg, Greene County, Pennsylvania[vi]

Military rank: Serial No. 1241505. Private. Company K, 110th Infantry, 28th Division.

Witness account of death: Statement given by Pvt. Gusseppi Giofre. “I was about four yards from Floyd Hickman when a high explosive shell hit where he was. I was stunned for a minute and when I recovered I saw Hickman dead. He was not wounded bad but the Concussion of the shell killed him. We were lying in a wheat field near the Grimpette woods just beyond the Ourcq river.”[vii]

Additional information:

Floyd graduated from Center Township High School in 1915, and from Waynesburg High School in 1916. He continued his education at Waynesburg College for one year before enlisting in Company K.[viii]

Floyd was the first in a family of seven children. A hero in his home, his legacy was naturally passed from his parents and siblings down to the next generation. One such account is that Floyd made the decision to enlist long before the United States declared war. On a Spring day in 1915, Floyd took his sweetheart, Mary Munnell, to see a movie at the Eclipse theater in Waynesburg. Ahead of the entertainment, a newsreel broadcasted that a German torpedo had sunk the Lusitania. Floyd cut the date short, distraught and aware that this would be an impactful event.[ix]

Floyd enlisted 11 May 1917[x] and left for training 7 September 1917. His youngest brother was still a toddler. Floyd’s big-brotherly manner, plus, genuine interest in family and home, comes across in a letter he wrote to his mother on 13 July 1918.

Somewhere in France

July 13, '18.

Dear Mother & all: - Well we took another jump since I wrote last but not a very big one. We are now camping in a woods. I guess I won't feel at home when I get back unless I take my little tent and go to Dr. Grimes' woods and live.

It's very pleasant though only it's rained every day & night since we've been here and rather muddy sometimes.

One evening last week was a happy one for the boys - a big bunch of mail from home. Almost everyone got mail and I sure felt sorry for the ones who didn't - it made them feel blue to see everyone else getting mail from home and they didn't. I wished I could have divided mine with them for I got seven letters. Got two from home, two from Blanche, and one each from Clarence, Irene, and Carolyn. O' boy ain't it a grand and glorious feeling! So sorry to hear of Aunts Edith's and Mag's accidents. I haven't recd. any mail from any of the Fordyces yet.

Was kinda surprised to hear of Frank in long trousers, makes me feel like an old man aready.

I had a dream last night about the whole family. I thot I was home, but a "big noise" wakened me and I found myself still in my little tent.

We're working every day and everyone feeling good and quite well.

Tomorrow is France's Independence Day. I guess we help celebrate it but don't know how.

Hope everyone is well and having the best in health.

Love to all,

Floyd[xi]

The grief of Floyd’s parents was compounded by the long delayed news regarding confirmation of his grave location in France. Most of Floyd’s comrades were brought home for burial in 1921, but the Hickmans saw 1921, 1922, and most of 1923 pass without word of their son’s body. For a father and mother who had already been waiting since 1918 to bury their child, it was a wearying scenario. During this period, Lindsey and Cora learned that on 11 November 1921, a US soldier, killed in France, was to be placed in a Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington DC. According to family story, the couple were convinced that this was their son. The Hickmans traveled from Waynesburg to Washington DC to attend the ceremony.[xii]

Finally, in Summer 1923, Floyd’s battlefield grave was  located near Cierges, likely on Hill 212 itself or close by, as the battle ground became the burial ground for the soldiers who fell on 29 and 30 July 1918. Floyd’s body was removed to Aisne-Marne American Cemetery in Belleau, France, while his family was contacted. Floyd’s father was asked for his son to be returned home in spite of some suggestion that he should remain in the military cemetery.[xiii] Floyd was finally surrounded once more by his family and friends on 3 November 1923,[xiv] as they laid him to rest in Green Mount Cemetery. His may have been one of the last, if not the last, of Greene County’s World War I funerals for a soldier killed in action (not including the missing who have never been recovered). In Spring 1924, Floyd’s effects, which had been found with his body, were received by his parents, confirming the accuracy of the identification.[xv]

Part of a larger tribute composed by Floyd’s Waynesburg High School classmate, these words published 5 September 1918, in the Waynesburg Republican, provide another perspective of the loss felt locally:

Every heart is full of sympathy for the family and friends of this brave young man, whose life overflowed with good cheer to all around him. The noble purpose for which he gave up his life shall hallow and make sacred his memory for all time.

“So you’ll live, you’ll live, my wonderful lad,

In the gleam of the evening star,

In the wood-note wild, and the laugh of the child,

In all sweet things that are.

And you’ll never die, you wonderful boy,

While life is noble and true;

For all our beauty and hope and joy

We will owe to our lads like you.”[xvi]

In 1934, Cora Fordyce Hickman, Floyd's mother, was granted $10.00 a month for 20 months as part of the Pennsylvania Veteran’s Compensation Act, on behalf of her son.[xvii]