Betty was born August 15, 1934 near Pleasant Hill, Jackson County, MO, to William Silas Davidson and Minerva Ann Johnson Davidson. Her father was born in the family home north of Pleasant Hill, the son of William Davidson (a Civil War Veteran) originally from Hendricks County, Indiana and Alice Annette Van Hoy Davidson, born in Cass County, MO, in her family home near Pleasant Hill, MO. William Davidson served in many battles in the Civil War and was captured at the Battle of the Wilderness and held in the Andersonville Prison for 7 months at the end of that War.
Betty's mother, Minerva Ann Johnson Davidson, was the daughter of Charles Warren Johnson and Laura Etta Beck Johnson, originally of McLean County, Illinois, then Jackson County, MO. Charles brought his family to Missouri sometime between 1901 and 1904, settling on a farm in Jackson County north of Pleasant Hill, MO.
Betty and her family moved to a farm north of Harrisonville in the spring of the year she would be 9 in August, where she lived most of her life, except for a couple of years right after her marriage - having moved back to the farm on which she lived as a child in 1959, when her son was 5 years of age. She worked for the Hight-Edison Title Company, later Hight Land Titles, Inc. for a total of 19 years, then in various other clerical positions in Harrisonville until her retirement in 1997. Betty was a 1952 graduate of Harrisonville High School, a member of Faith Baptist Church, and a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR).
She married Wade Paul Hicks from Clinton, MO, on October 3, 1953, at the First Baptist Church parsonage in Harrisonville, MO. Surviving are son and daughter-in-law, Michael Eugene and Donna Oetting Hicks; two grandsons, John Michael and David Paul Hicks; 2 step- grandchildren; 4 four step-great-grandchildren; a sister, Annetta Sue Davidson Siegenthaler (Steven); and many nieces and nephews.
She was preceded in death by her husband, Wade Paul Hicks; her oldest sisters: Evaline Ann Farris and Gloria Louise Luckett; and her husband, James "Lucky".
