WILLIAM CALVIN KIKER

 The following bio was taken from page 267 of the book entitled “Rusk County History” compiled and edited and used with permission of the Rusk County Historical Commission.

 Transcribed by Shirley Koym

Submitted by Gloria Briley Mayfield, Cemeteries of Texas

 Soon after word that oil had been found in East Texas, William Calvin Kiker came to Rusk County in January 1931, from Electra, Texas, and located his machine shop, Texas Boiler and Sheet Iron Works, at Turnertown, three miles from Dad Joiner’s discovery well.  He had married Josephine Frances Hagan in Electra, in 1923, and they had three sons:  Joseph Calvin, in 1924; James Richard, born in 1931; and Samuel Walter, in 1934.

 Calvin’s business prospered, and he commenced over twenty-five years service on the Gaston School Board, was an active member in the Mt. Hope Presbyterian Church, and worked with civic organizations.  He supported the consolidation of Gaston and London School Districts to form West Rusk and served on their boards for one term.  In 1968 he closed his business and was in retirement until his death, November 1977, at age eighty.

 The Kiker’s descended from Johan Christian Steicher (listed as Keyser, then corrupted to Kiker) who landed at Philadelphia, in September 1753 on board HMS Neptune.  He married Polly Bolton in North Carolina and had three sons:  John, Conrad, and George, the latter a veteran of the Revolutionary War.  One of George’s sons served in the War of 1812, and all took up land in Gordon County, Georgia, when it was vacated by the dispossessed Cherokee Indians in the 1820’s.  One son, Benjamin Franklin Kiker, fathered eleven children, all of whom migrated to northern Alabama in the 1850’s.  Four sons served in the Alabama Infantry Regiments, but after the war, the entire family moved to Texas, in September 1870.  It took six weeks to reach McLennan County, where they passed two years, then followed the Bosque River to Erath County.  Land was purchased for $1.25 an acre with gold acquired by one son during the California Gold Rush twenty years previously.  For a while they prospered, but depleted land, drought, and the boll weevil caused them to move again by 1900.  Although some went farther west or to Oklahoma to seek new farmland, others for the first time, took jobs or started businesses.  When Calvin Kiker returned from naval service in WWI, he worked for Continental Supply Company in Corsicana and Electra.  His father, Walter C. Kiker, later was retired from Conoco Oil Company.

 Josephine Frances Hagan, born 1902 in Marion, Indiana, was the only daughter of four children born to Cora Della Cruse and Joseph Francis Hagan.  Her father had founded a boiler making business and followed the developing oil fields from Pennsylvania through the mid-west.  From about 1895-1928, they lived in Ohio, Indiana, Kansas, Illinois, Oklahoma, and finally Electra.  In 1928, Joe Hagan died. His wife moved to Rusk County in 1934 to open a boarding and rooming house for schoolteachers.

 All three of the Kiker sons finished at Gaston.  Afterwards, Joseph and Sam graduated from Texas A&M and Jim from University of Texas.  Joseph served in WWII and Jim in Korea.  Each of the boys found work away from Rusk County; however, the family home remains at Turnertown as of this writing (October 1981).

 Submitted by James R. Kiker