Naoma Hickerson; Quilter, Retired Nurse

Naoma Hickerson of Port Hueneme, an inveterate quilter and 52-year county resident, died Tuesday of heart disease. She was 80.

Hickerson and her mother, Josie Watkins, who died at 101, made more than 2,000 quilts for fellow members of the Oxnard Seventh-day Adventist Church and the less fortunate.

“It wasn’t so much that she loved quilting as she loved the Lord and she did that for her church,” said her husband of 52 years, John Hickerson. “She made just about every young couple in the church . . . a baby quilt.”

She was born Oct. 24, 1916, in Liberal, Kan.

She graduated from Glendale Adventist Hospital Nursing School as a registered nurse in 1942. In 1944, she met her husband-to-be through a mutual friend while he was stationed in Port Hueneme; the couple married Sept. 8, 1944.

In 1945, Hickerson began working for a Port Hueneme doctor who was instrumental in the construction of Belinda Hospital in the city in the early 1950s. She worked at the hospital, which today is a rehabilitation center, until her retirement in 1983.

A faithful member of her church for more than half a century, Hickerson was a selfless caregiver who looked after both her mother and mother-in-law during their later years, her husband said.

“In the 52-plus years that I lived with my wife, I never heard her say an unkind thing about anybody--except me once in awhile,” he said. “Whatever she had spilled off onto this old sailor.”

In addition to her husband, survivors include a son, Thomas Hickerson of Portland, Ore.; two daughters, Lois Gibbs of Riverside and Joanie Stump of Waldorf, Md.; one sister, Eunice Shirey of Deerpark, Calif.; two brothers, Fred DeLay of Camarillo and Charles DeLay of Wichita, Kan., and four grandchildren.

Visitation is scheduled for 3 to 8 p.m. today at James A. Reardon Mortuary, 511 North A St., Oxnard. Funeral services will be held at 2 p.m. Saturday at the Oxnard Seventh-day Adventist Church. Interment follows at Conejo Mountain Memorial Park in Camarillo.

Memorial donations may be made to the Seventh-day Adventist Church, 211 W. Birch St., Oxnard 93033.