wfn.org | Leon Hickman, giant of Methodism, dead at 98

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

June 24, 1999	News media contact: Thomas S.
McAnally*(615)742-5470*Nashville, Tenn.    10-71BP{348}

NOTE:  A photograph is available for use with this story.

By United Methodist News Service

Leon E. Hickman, one of the giants of Methodism, died June 10 at Asbury
Heights Retirement Center in Mt. Lebanon Township near Pittsburgh, a few
weeks short of his 99th birthday.

An attorney, Hickman came from a long line of Methodists.  He was educated
at a United Methodist-related  college, served as a General Conference
delegate, and provided  significant leadership on several churchwide
agencies including eight years on the Judicial Council, the church's
nine-member "supreme court." 

Hickman was born July 7, 1900, in Sioux City, Iowa.  His grandfather, Simeon
Martin Hickman, was a clergy member of the Pittsburgh Conference of the
Methodist Episcopal Church from 1857 until the conference divided in 1876;
thereafter, he belonged to the East Ohio Conference.  His great-great
grandfather, Jeremiah Hickman, and great-great-great grandfather, Adam
Hickman, were both Methodist Episcopal class leaders in what became the
Pittsburgh Conference in 1827.  For many years, their homes were preaching
points on the circuits of itinerant preachers.

One of Hickman's two sons, the Rev. Hoyt Hickman of Nashville, Tenn., is a
retired staff member of the churchwide Board of Discipleship and a leading
authority on Christian worship.

"He was one of the giants of Methodism," Hickman's pastor, the Rev. Drew
Harvey, told a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reporter. "He was, in the finest
sense of the word, a complete United Methodist, combining knowledge, piety
and a quest for justice." Harvey is senior pastor at Mt. Lebanon United
Methodist Church, which Hickman joined in 1928. 

In the 1980s, the Mt. Lebanon congregation wanted to acquire a third parking
lot, only to discover that the property had a restriction forbidding its
sale to the church.  So Hickman bought the property himself and gave it to
the church.  

A former pastor at Mt. Lebanon, the Rev. Pat Albright,  described Hickman as
"tender without being soft, gracious without being unctuous and kind without
being condescending."

Hickman earned his undergraduate degree from United Methodist-related
Morningside College, Sioux City, Iowa, where he later served 39 years on its
board of trustees, including nine years as chairman.  He also served six
years on the board of two United Methodist-related seminaries: Wesley in
Washington and Saint Paul in Kansas City, Mo.

He was a delegate to four consecutive Northeastern Jurisdictional
Conferences beginning in 1952, and was a delegate to the last two Methodist
General Conference before the denomination merged with the Evangelical
United Brethren Church in 1968.

He was a member of the Methodist Coordinating Council, predecessor of
today's General Council on Ministries, and for eight years served as its
vice chairman. "One thing he told me he learned from his experience on the
Coordinating Council was that Methodists are determined not to be
coordinated," his son Hoyt recalled.

Hickman was a member of the Judicial Council from 1964 to 1972, serving as
its vice chairman from 1968 to 1972. He served for nine years as the
chancellor and legal counsel to the Western Pennsylvania Annual Conference
and helped create a foundation for the conference.

He received honorary degrees from four United Methodist-related schools,
including Morningside, where a library and dining room are named in his
honor. 

He married Mayme Hoyt Hickman in 1926. She died in 1991. In addition to
Hoyt, Hickman is survived by a son, Herbert W. Hickman, Livingston, N.J.,
two sisters, six grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.

Most of Hickman's career was with the Aluminum Company of America, where he
served from 1951 to 1967.  He seriously considered entering the ministry,
according to Hoyt, but he was discouraged by what he regarded as the shabby
treatment of the local Methodist pastor during a congregational dispute. 

In the 1960s, Hickman, a lifelong Republican, emerged as a force for social
justice in Allegheny County, according to the Post-Gazette article.

"He was, by many standards, a fairly conservative person," Hoyt said. "But
he wanted very much to support justice ministries that he felt were
realistic."

^From 1969 to 1975, he was chairman of Action Housing Inc., which built more
than 3,000 homes for low-income residents. In 1970, he became chairman of
the Pennsylvania Housing Agency, which financed low-income housing.  

Late in 1998, Hickman was diagnosed with kidney failure.  After a month of
dialysis, he called his sons and asked them to approve his discontinuance of
the treatment. They agreed. As his strength waned, three generations of
Hickmans gathered around his bed to pray and sing hymns.

Memorial services were held at Asbury Heights Chapel June 15 and at the Mt.
Lebanon United Methodist Church June 19.

# # #

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