William Hickey

Funeral services for William Preston Hickey Sr., 91, of Spencer will be held at 1 pm Friday, November 25 at the Cookeville Chapel of Hooper Huddleston & Horner Funeral Home with Dr. Charles McCaskey officiating. Interment will follow in the Cookeville City Cemetery. The family will receive friends Friday from 11 am until service time at the funeral home. Mr. Hickey died suddenly November 19, 2011 in the Cookeville Regional Medical Center. He was born November 18, 1920 in West Seneca, NY to the late James Udell and Ruth Louise Schenk Hickey. Mr. Hickey earned his undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering in 1943 from the University of Michigan. He continued his education and graduated from the John Marshall Law School in Cleveland, OH in 1951. Following graduation Mr. Hickey began private law practice. He was particularly fond of inventions and enjoyed helping inventors with new ideas as a Patent Attorney. He was full of life. His hobbies included flying, farming, ballroom dancing, and musical instruments. In addition to his parents, he is preceded in death by his son James Richard Hickey, two brothers, Robert and James Hickey; and sister, Eleanor Bethel. He is survived by his former wife, V. Jane Mervar Hickey of Marietta, GA; two sons, William Preston Hickey Jr. of Tucson, AZ, and John Curtis Hickey of Belleville, MI; two daughters and sons-in-law, Nancy and Stephen Watts of Marietta, GA, and Carolyn and Reuben Slone of Glen Ellyn, IL; one sister, Louis Himes of Littleton, CO; eight grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren, and a companion and dancing partner, Connie Norton of Cookeville. Family and friends will serve as pallbearers.