San
Joaquin County
Biographies
WILLIS WARE STACKS
Ability and industry, combined with
a good practical head for business, are among the qualities that have brought
success to Willis W. Stacks, rancher near the Elliott school, where he was born
on March 11, 1884, the son of Thomas Jefferson and Mary Jane (Hickey) Stacks,
both natives of Jasper County, Missouri.
In 1872 Thomas J. Stacks came to California where he worked at anything
he could find to do until after he was married, when he engaged in farming in
the Elliott district. The mother was a
daughter of Joshua and Sarah F. (Crow) Hickey.
Joshua Hickey came to California in 1861 and settled on a 160-acre ranch
in the Elliott district in San Joaquin County.
He passed away in 1865, and his widow, with her four daughters, went
back to Missouri and in 1873 came back to California and here married John
Hickey, who died in 1908. Grandmother
Hickey died at the age of eighty-five on April 30, 1922, leaving three girls,
Mary Jane Stacks, Mrs. Emma M. Wilson and Mrs. Elizabeth Aldrich.
The father, Thomas J. Stacks, farmed
500 acres of grain land in the Elliott district; 200 acres is an inheritance
from John Hickey, which is still owned by Mrs. Stacks. In 1908, a country residence was built on
this property and there the family reside.
They were the parents of eight children:
Nancy F. is Mrs. R. Declercq, of Fresno;
Minnie H. is Mrs. S. S. Strobridge, of Lockeford; Willis W. is the subject of this review; Annie
is Mrs. Charles Emslie, of Stockton; William T.;
Bessie is Mrs. James Lewis, of Sacramento; Jennie is Mrs. Eli Springer, of
Lodi; Dora is Mrs. Harry Ritchie, of Lodi.
There are ten grandchildren in the family. T. J. Stacks died February 17, 1915.
W. W. Stacks received his schooling
in the Elliott district and grew to young manhood on his father’s farm, where
he learned lessons of thrift and industry so necessary to success in any
undertaking, and he carries on the home ranch with his mother. In politics Mr. Stack is a Democrat.
Transcribed by Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Page
1079. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 Gerald Iaquinta.
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