< Back to Oral History project: Florida’s Forgotten Coast
ORAL HISTORY
Monette Hicks - Longtime Resident of Eastpoint
Born in 1916, Monette Hicks grew up in Eastpoint. In those days, boats didn’t have motors, there weren’t any bridges over the bay, and there were no houses on St. George Island. Seafood was all anyone knew. Monette’s family worked the bay harvesting oysters. She quit school at the age of twelve, when she was big enough to shuck. Oystermen harvested their catch nearby on Cat Point and Porters Bar. Shuckers would work daylight to dark, without electricity. In 1933, at the age of sixteen, Monette married a shrimper, Louis Hullman Hicks. Louis sold his catch to Taranto’s Seafood in Apalachicola. But together, the Hickses eventually owned and operated an oyster house of their own. There, Monette shucked until she was well into her seventies.
It is with great sadness that the SFA shares news that Monette Hicks, longtime resident of Eastpoint, FL, passed away on January 3, 2009.
