The Reverend Mellie H. Hickey

The Rev. Mellie H. Hickey, 94, a pioneering woman in the Episcopal Church, died February 18, 2011 in Aiken, SC. Funeral services will be held at 10:00 AM Monday at St. Thaddeus Episcopal Church with The Rt. Rev. Andrew Waldo, The Rev. Canon Charles Davis, The Rev. Grant B. Wiseman, The Rev. Joseph S. Whitehurst and The Rev. Charlotte Waldrop officiating. Interment will follow in the church cemetery. The family will then receive friends in the Stevenson-McClelland building. The first woman in the South to be officially ordained a priest in the Episcopal Church, The Rev. Hickey had a rich life. In her ministry she was beloved for her understanding, compassion, gentleness, humor, and strength. Especially important to her was administering the sacraments, counseling, and visiting the sick and the elderly. Mellie was the wife of The Rev. Howard M. Hickey, long time rector of St. Thaddeus Episcopal Church, Aiken. In addition to supporting her husband’s ministry, Mellie was a mother, teacher, avid tennis player, a priest and rector herself. In 1974 at the age of 57, Mellie entered the Virginia Theological Seminary, Alexandria, VA. At that time the Episcopal Church did not permit the ordination of women as priests but, in 1976, the General Convention of the Episcopal Church in Denver voted in favor of the ordination of women. Mellie began her final year of seminary knowing that she could be ordained. In 1977 Mellie received her Master of Divinity degree and was ordained a deacon at St. Thaddeus. In May 1978 she was ordained a priest at St. Thaddeus, the first woman to be ordained a priest in the South. The Rev. Mellie Hickey became an assistant at St. Thaddeus. Thereafter, she served for several months as interim rector at St. Luke’s, Newberry, SC, and then for almost three years at the Church of the Incarnation, Gaffney, SC. Some years after Father Hickey retired from St. Thaddeus, the Hickeys met the Bishop of South Dakota who told them of the conditions of the Indians in his diocese and his need for clergy to work with them. In 1990 -1991 the Hickeys moved to the South Dakota town of Dupree on the Cheyenne Indian River Reservation and in the poorest county in the U.S. Rev. Hickey was responsible for three churches: St. Philips in Dupree, St. Luke’s at Iron Lightning, and St. Peter’s at Thunder Butte. Living conditions were hard but the experience was invaluable. In her last assignment as a priest Rev. Hickey accepted the position at All Saints, Beech Island, SC where she served for six years until she retired in 2005. During her time at All Saints, the number of communicants grew and the Church, which some had wanted to close, regained good standing. The Rev. Mellie Hickey was the third child born to Elizabeth and William Thaddeus Hussey in Tarboro, NC, on June 16, 1916. As a child she spent entire summers with her family swimming, fishing, and playing games on Cape Lookout, an island in the Outer Banks of North Carolina where her father had built a cottage. Rev. Hickey graduated from Peace, a school in Raleigh, NC, after the eleventh grade. She graduated from Mary Baldwin College. On April 27, 1940 Rev. Hickey married Howard McKay Hickey of Melrose, MA, whom she had met while he was a student at nearby Washington and Lee University. Mr. Hickey was in business in Rocky Mount, NC and later in Tarboro. The couple had two children, Mellie and Howard. Although the Hickeys were Presbyterians, they had become very interested in the Episcopal Church. In January 1951 The Rt. Rev. George Henry, Bishop of the Diocese of Western North Carolina, confirmed the Hickeys as members of the Episcopal Church and they moved to Asheville, NC. Under the direction of Bishop Henry, Father Hickey began studying for the priesthood while he and Mellie organized and started a new mission, St. George’s Episcopal Church. From 1951 until May 1958, that church grew from 17 to a hundred communicants and moved from a rented house into a new church and Sunday School building. The Hickeys moved to Aiken in 1958 when Father Hickey accepted the call to serve as rector of St. Thaddeus Episcopal Church. In 1962 Mellie Hickey began teaching at Aiken High School and later at the Aiken Day School. The Hickeys moved to Greensboro, NC in 1966 where Father Hickey was rector of Holy Trinity Church until he returned to Aiken in 1972 as rector of St. Thaddeus and rector emeritus upon his retirement in 1980. When asked by an Episcopal Church publication about her ministry, Rev. Hickey stated: “The most important thing that I do is that ‘I am.’ I am a priest – a woman priest - and God works through me, and people who see me in my work at the altar, in the hospital, in preaching and ministering to the poor, the friendless, and the needy know this.” Rev. Hickey is survived by her children, Mellie H. Nelson, Washington, DC, and Howard McKay Hickey, Aiken, SC; five grandchildren, and four great grandchildren. Memorials may be directed to St. Thaddeus Episcopal Church, 125 Pendleton St., Aiken, SC 29801, or to Mead Hall School at the same address. Rev. Hickey's online guest book may be signed at www.shellhousefuneralhome.com SHELLHOUSE FUNERAL HOME, INC., 924 HAYNE AVE., AIKEN, SC To order memorial trees or send flowers to the family in memory of The Reverend Mellie H. Hickey, please visit our flower store.