Doris May McCann Hickerson

Doris Hickerson died on February 22, 2024, in Eureka, California after a short illness.

Doris May McCann was born in Eureka on December 31, 1924, to Andrew Warren McCann and Cora Margaret Olson McCann. Both her parents were born in Eureka to immigrants from New Brunswick, Canada, and Norway. The family included her older sister, Beryl Marie McCann. After her parents divorced, her mother married Barry Brown, and Doris’s half-brother, Thomas Ashmun Brown joined the family.

She graduated from Eureka High School in February 1943 and from Humboldt State College in June 1946 with a BA in Elementary Education and a teaching credential. While she was a student at HSC, she met Robert Hickerson, a sailor stationed at the Naval Air Station in McKinleyville. They married in June 1946. Doris taught for several years as Bob took advantage of the GI Bill to graduate from Oregon State College in Corvallis with a degree in Physics. She followed Bob to his new job in Burbank, California, where their only child, Dean Robert Hickerson, was born in 1954. Bob’s work took the family to Grass Valley, Sacramento, Davis, and Yreka, California, as well as to a memorable year in Santiago, Chile. Doris especially liked the house they built a few miles outside Yreka, where they had Araucana chickens that laid colorful eggs, a large and productive vegetable garden, and a beautiful view of Mt. Shasta. In addition to teaching, Doris’s various jobs included working in the UC Davis library, and the Siskiyou County Planning Department. 

When she and Bob divorced in 1983, Doris returned to Eureka, where she worked in the Humboldt County Planning Department until she retired in 1997 at the age of 73. In her retirement, she took up quilting, writing, watercolor painting, and some genealogy, mostly in small groups at The Meadows senior apartment complex where she loved, and was loved by, many of her neighbors. She also continued her life-long enjoyment of plants and gardening at The Meadows.

Doris was preceded in death by her parents, her beloved sister Beryl Carrico, her half-brother Tommy Brown, her ex-husband Robert Hickerson, her Siberian Husky Tara, and many spoiled cats. She is survived by her son Dean Hickerson, her nephew Randy Carrico (Deborah), niece Lynn Carrico (Russ), nephew Rob Buerk (Lori), and extended family.

No services are planned.

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