Location
Ethel Osborn Hill
Topics
Description
Ms Hill, also known as “Ma Thicket”, lived in Port Arthur and Woodville, led home economics courses in canning and food preservation, and worked at the Hughen Home for Crippled Children. She wrote widely – serving as a columnist for the Beaumont Enterprise, Houston Chronicle, Tyler County Booster, and other newspapers, and as a poet who was recognized in 1978 as the state’s poet laureate. A charter member of the Big Thicket Association in the 1930s, she used much of her writing and public speaking to promote appreciation and protection of the Big Thicket.
Location Notes
One possible place for a marker in Ms Hill’s honor could be at the Tyler County Courthouse in Woodville, Texas. She spent her summers in a cabin in the Woodville area for decades, served as president of the Woodville Garden Club, wrote for the local paper, and promoted the Big Thicket area that surrounds Woodville.
Bibliography
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Michael T. Gracey, Ma Thicket: The Story of Ethel Osborn Hill. N.p.: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014.
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“Ma Thicket Recollects.” Texas Clubwoman, 43 (March 1970), 13.