Richard Hickock and his mother’s bond

Dick’s relationship with his mother, Mrs. Hickock, is marked by regular visits, personal correspondence, and his awareness of the hardship his imprisonment imposes on her. After his father died and the family farm was lost, she moved between relatives’ homes; despite these changed circumstances, she continued traveling to see Dick each month.

Visits and Family Circumstances

Mrs. Hickock visited Dick once a month. Her life outside the prison had become unsettled: widowed and without the farm, she stayed with one relative and then another. The visits required a recurring bus journey, and Dick understood that she came hoping to comfort him, smiling and trying to find something to say that might make him feel better. He described the visits as an ordeal for her and wondered how she endured them.

Her visits also connected her to another prisoner’s family. In the waiting room, she met Mrs. York, whose son Ronnie was also condemned. The two women became close companions, and Mrs. York invited Mrs. Hickock to visit or perhaps live with her in Florida. Dick hoped that she might accept, imagining it could spare her the repeated journey to see him.

Correspondence and Concern

Dick wrote to his mother about the conditions of life on the Row. In one letter, he described the stifling heat, the lack of ventilation, and the discomfort of having only one bath a week. In another, he confided that his hair was falling out and that the possibility of becoming bald frightened him. These letters show him turning to his mother with ordinary anxieties even within the exceptional circumstances of his confinement.

His concern also ran in the other direction. Dick focused on the strain that the prison visits placed on his mother, not only on what they meant to him. His wish that she might find company and a different place to stay suggests a practical form of care: he could not change her circumstances directly, but he hoped her friendship with Mrs. York might ease them.

Perry and the Limits of the Bond

Mrs. Hickock’s concern extended beyond her son. She wrote to the warden asking permission to speak with Perry, hoping to hear from him how the killings had happened and whether Dick had fired a shot. Dick hoped that Perry might testify at a new trial and confirm his account, although he doubted that Perry would do so. His mother’s request therefore placed her affection for Dick alongside a search for clarification about the crime and the men’s conflicting claims.

Dick presented himself as someone who had tried to get along with Perry and complained that Perry resented the attention Dick received, including letters and visits. Yet his account of his mother’s meeting with Mrs. York reveals a bond that offered him steadiness amid the Row’s isolation: she continued to come, and he remained attentive to the toll that doing so took on her.