Obituary of Mollie Ione Ricker (Lawson)

Mollie Ione Ricker, 88, left this world in peace on Saturday, March 22, 2014. Mollie was born December 11, 1925 in Three Sands, Oklahoma to Van and Fleeta Lawson who were Pentecostal preachers pastoring at the little school house church established there. Mollie was fourth of six children. She attended school in the Yale area until her parents moved to California in 1939 where she attended grammar school in Cutler and then high school in Orosa. A few days after her sixteenth birthday, she and William (Bill) eloped and were married in Visalia at the Tulare County Courthouse. After four children were born, Mollie and Bill moved to Arkansas for a short period of time. They eventually returned to California where Mollie has been a Yuba-Sutter resident for the last 54 years. Mollie and Bill built and ran a small mill making stakes for Cal Trans throughout California. Mollie is preceded in death by her husband, William Loye Ricker. They were married for 67 years. Mollie is survived by her 4 children: Ronald Ricker of Wells, Nevada, Janice Sims (Bill) of Yuba City, Richard Ricker (Linda) of Taylorsville, Utah, and Mary Ames (John) of Augusta, Maine. She has 10 grandchildren, 17 great-grandchildren, and 3 great-great-grandchildren. She is also survived by 1 sister, Jewel Dodson (Artie) of Visalia; and two brothers, Arnold Lawson (Virginia) of Snow Flake, Arizona, and Lewis Van Lawson (Christine) of Bakersfield, CA.