Reverend William Delos Tickner was born in the northeastern part of New York State, December 16, 1849, and died at Jackson Center, Ohio, December 2, 1925.
At the age of seven years William removed with his parents to Marquette, Wis. The following year his parents embraced the Sabbath of Christ.
He was united in Holy matrimony to Miss Ella West on December 27, 1876, who with their daughter, Mrs. A. H. Atkins, of Oxford, Wis., survives him. Three sons, Emory, Lucius and Henry, and one daughter, Anna Belle, preceded him.
Brother Tickner completed his course in Milton College in 1876, receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree. Several years later, after a post graduate course, Milton College conferred upon him the degree of Master of Arts.
For twenty years Brother Tickner taught in the public schools of Wisconsin at Randolph and Milton. For a number of years he was principal of the Princeton School. About twenty years after his graduation from Milton College, Brother Tickner entered the dental profession continuing therein for a quarter of a century.
Being desirous of rendering service of a distinctively spiritual nature, Brother Tickner prepared himself for the Christian ministry, and upon October 4, 1913, was ordained at the Grand Marsh Seventh Day Baptist church. Dr. Tickner served this church and its outposts until June, 1922, when he became the pastor of the Jackson Center Seventh Day Baptist Church. He was much beloved by his people in both Wisconsin and Ohio, and many hears will be saddened by the tidings of his death.
Brother Tickner was a prolific writer on a wide range of subjects. Although he was confined to bed for the past five months, his intellect was most keen and he wrote for the Sabbath Recorder, the Pentecostal Herald and other religious papers, including the Exponent. He also wrote a number of articles in the Columbus Dispatch combating the evolutional hypothesis.
Not only along religious and philosophical lines was his mind active but along lines of scientific inventions as well. Being appalled by the great loss of life at grade crossings, he invented a device which, electrically controlled, will, upon the approach of a train, flash first a yellow light and then a red light and ring an alarm bell, and, at a proper time, lower and raise gates on each side of the railroad tracks. This device is receiving a patent from the United States government. His anticipated financial returns in connection with the sale of this device were large, but Brother Tickner said to his wife; 'We will keep only so much as we need to live on, the balance we will give to the Lord's work. We will finance the vocational enterprise at Jackson Center and help elsewhere and on the mission fields.'
Brother Tickner excelled as a pastor. To him there were no black sheep. He never had an unkind word to say of any of his members. No partiality characterized his speech or actions.
His wife tells us that in all their forty-nine years of married life, he never uttered the first unkind word to her. His last words were, 'I've fought a good fight; I believe, yes, I believe that I have kept the faith. Hallelujah,' and then with a look heavenward, 'My Father!'
Truly we have lost a great and good man!
The writer preached a farewell sermon from 2 Thessalonians 4: 15, 'That ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope,' on Sabbath morning, December 5, in the Jackson Center Seventh Day Baptist church at the regular hour for divine service. The floral tributes were very beautiful, different church societies and individuals being the givers. C. W. Snyder and Company were in charge of the funeral arrangements. At the conclusion of the memorial service, the bereaved relatives and parishioners made their way to the beautiful little Seventh Day Baptist cemetery where, with appropriate ceremonies, we laid away the remains of Brother Tickner to await the mighty trump of the resurrection angel. Robert B. St. Clair.
