Emilyn Hickman

EMILYN C. HICKMAN, 90, passed away November 1, 2012 at Zeeland Community Hospital after a brief illness, with her family by her side.

Emilyn was born on May 24, 1922 in Fennville, MI to Henry Blakeslee (H.B.) and Muriel Elizabeth Crane, the 4th of 8 children on what is now Crane Orchards.

After graduating from Fennville High School, she attended Kalamazoo Business College and Michigan State University. From there, she obtained a World War II government job in Mobile, Ala. where she met her future husband, Army Staff Sergeant Roy Hickman. They were married in Mobile on November 30, 1941 and remained there until the end of the War. After the War, they moved back to Fennville and then to Holland, where they spent most of their remaining years together, Roy as Sales Manager for Ter Haar/Venhuizen Olds-Cadillac and Emilyn as a medical Secretary in the X-ray department at Holland Hospital and at three Urologists offices and sales person at Talbots.

Emilyn was predeceased by her husband, Roy, in July of 2000, her parents H.B and Muriel Crane, and brother’s Edward Crane and John Calvin Crane. Surviving are her children Muriel (and Ron) Robinson and Bob (and Nancy) Hickman, two grand-children, Sara (and Jason) Rogers and Andrew (and Kim) Robinson and 5 grand dogs, two great-grand-children, Kyle and Keegan Robinson, two sisters, Shirley Galliher of Richmond, VT and Beth (and Ken) Carlson of New Port Richie, FL, and two brothers, Albert Crane and Bob (and Lou) Crane of Fennville and many wonderful nieces and nephews.

Per her wishes, she has been cremated and her ashes scattered across her childhood farm. There will be no services. A celebration of her life will be held at a later date. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made in her name to the Fennville Public Library. Arrangements by Downtown Chapel, Dykstra Funeral Homes. To sign an on-line registry or leave a memory please visit www.dykstrafuneralhome.com

The family would also like to thank Chris, Renee, Faith, Lia, Muriel, and the entire nurses staff, all shifts, of Zeeland Community Hospital Second Floor West, Dr. Dale Wiersma, Scott Parrott P.A., and Spectrum Hospice for their kind and gentle care above and beyond their duty, without which Emilyn’s last days would not have been possible.

Please think of Emilyn whenever you hear or read:

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings:

Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

Of sun-split clouds – and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of – wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence: hov’ring there,

I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air.

Up, the long, delirious, burning blue

I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace

Where never lark, or even eagle flew –

And, while the silent lifting mind I’ve trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand and touched the face of God.