On Wednesday, February 6, members and guests of the Community Club of Garden City and Hempstead, Inc., welcomed two members of the Hicks Nurseries family to their general program at the Garden City Casino. Stephen Hicks represents the sixth generation of the family to run the business, and his mother Marilyn is from the fifth generation. Founded in 1853 by Isaac Hicks, who began the business by selling trees to his neighbors, Hicks Nurseries is the 71 st oldest family-owned business in America.

Marilyn, who is a director of the nursery, began the program with a brief history of the family and its most notable members. The first Hicks arrived in America in 1621 and settled in the Massachusetts Bay Colony until 1670, when the family moved to Westbury, L.I., where their descendents still reside today. Quakers all, they were originally in the mercantile business. They owned several shops, and then went into ship building and railroads to lend support to each other's ventures. Uriah Hicks, a Quaker preacher, attempted to have a resolution against slavery passed by the N.Y. State Legislature in 1749. Another Hicks, Valentine, was a popular painter in the Bucks County School of Art in Pennsylvania.

Stephen Hicks picked up the story of Isaac, who in 1853 opened Hicks Nurseries on 20 acres of land right across the street from the family home. With his son Edward, they specialized in growing apple and other fruit trees. Edward later bought land in what became Hicksville and extended the LIRR line there, creating a village with a train station, a roundhouse and a hotel. Edward graduated from Brooklyn Poly Tech as a mechanical engineer and designed equipment to move and transport huge trees using a system of pulleys, winches and horsepower.

At this time, the Gold Coast of L.I. was being developed and summer "cottages" were being built for the wealthy who wanted "instant" landscaping with fully-grown trees and bushes. Hicks Nurseries were able to provide them thanks to Edward's invention. The family business grew and profited.

Club members said it was fascinating to view Stephen's slides of photos from this era showing exactly how these tremendous scrubs and trees were uprooted, the roots carefully protected by wrappings, then transported to their destination and replanted. The skill, which was taught to many of the immigrants arriving from Europe, was so precise that the nursery was able to offer a replacement guarantee but rarely ever had to replace a transplant. Many descendants of these immigrants continue to be employed at the nurseries today. Another well known-member of the Hicks family is Henry, Edward's son. A graduate of Cornell University's School of Horticulture, Henry traveled worldwide, bringing home rare plants and cultivating them to prorogate locally. The "Hicks Yew" is named after Henry.

Through the years, Hicks Nurseries continued to evolve and grow. To meet the needs of the new post-WWII suburban communities, it transformed itself into a full service cash and carry garden center.

There are plans today to develop the business even further. The next phase, to be launched this spring, will see the opening of a store dedicated to commercial business sales only. In the near future there will also be an expansion of services for retail customers, where landscape designers and contractors will be available at Hicks Nurseries to not only create and design the consumer's garden but to take it through the planting stage and maintain it afterward.

Prior to the start of the program, club President Marye Heston held a short business meeting during which the minutes of the January 9, 2008 meeting were read by recording secretary Anne Heinzelman and the treasurer's report was given by treasurer Carolyn Kaiser. After Rosemary McCarthy, chairperson of the Americinism/Current Events Department, led the group in the Pledge of Allegiance, general program chairperson Marge Maher asked past-president Marie Scott to introduce speakers Stephen and Marilyn Hicks. Phyllis Dima and Ruth LoBosco were in charge of hospitality, Marilyn Kerr did the decorations, Lee Amrheim welcomed new members and guests, Frieda Stark and Pat Shehan poured at the tea table and Marge Maher handled general arrangements for the program.

For more information about the Community Club and its vast array of programs, trips and fine arts classes, call their office at (516)746-0488 on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday between 9:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m.