Rickey, Octavia Wynn (Mrs. Harry)
5/22/1958
c.1876 - May 22, 1958 |
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| One of the famed women of history was the daughter of a king and she became a queen and the mother of kings. Mrs. Octavia Wynn Rickey surpassed the queen—she was the daughter of a Methodist minister and she became the wife of a Methodist minister and she was the mother of a minister. The father of Mrs. Rickey was Rev. John F. Wynn, the St. John of the earlier days of the Louisiana Conference, and her mother was a Miss Gorton, an elect lady of the Tensas country. Mrs. Rickey’s brother, Dr. Robert H. Wynn, was a distinguished member of the Louisiana Conference who In his last years rendered a great service as President of Centenary College. The late Dr. W. Winans Drake, a prominent leader in the Conference, was a cousin of Mrs. Rickey. Miss Octavia Wynn was married December 24, 1896, to Rev. Harry Rickey, a native of Ocean Springs, Mississippi, and longtime faithful and honored pastor in Louisiana. To this union were ‘born six sons and one daughter—John Gorton, who after service in the army and in Panama died in 1941, Dr. Wynn Rickey, Dr. Frank Rickey, Horace B. Rickey, Henry A. Rickey, and Miss Octavia Rickey. The youngest son, Henry A. Rickey, after serving charges in Louisiana and as District Superintendent in Arkansas, is now serving as Superintendent of the New Orleans District. As the wife of .a Methodist minister, Mrs. Rlckey had a useful part in the work of the church and was a faithful helpmeet of her husband. ‘The fiftieth anniversary of their marriage was celebrated as the crowning day of their long and happy life together. Brother Rickey, then a superannuate, died at his home in North Biloxi, Mississippi, November 27, 1948. Mrs. Rickey survived her husband until May 22, 1958, when God called her to her place in the house of many mansions. Her funeral was held in the First Methodist Church in Lafayette, Louisiana, by the Rev. Fred Flurry, the pastor, and interment was in the Lafayette Memorial Park. The children of Mrs. Rickey in their different avocations have achieved success and they have the esteem of those who are associated with them. Three of her sons—Wynn, Horace, and Frank-were connected for a time with First Methodist Church of New Orleans during the writer’s pastorate there and ‘they were active in the work of the young people and in the choir. The writer has been associated with Rev. Henry Rickey in the work of the Conference. To these recollections of association with these sons, there is added the happy memory of gracious hospitality to the Presiding Elder in the parsonage home of Mrs. Rickey and Brother Rickey and their daughter, Miss Octavia, in Jena, Louisiana. And with sure hope, we look with the loved ones ‘beyond the grave and to the radiant morn when we shall see those angel faces smile which we “have loved long since, and lost awhile.” |
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| Source: Journal of the Louisiana Conference of the Methodist Church, Pages 220-221, 1959 by R. H. Harper. | |
