Priscilla Hosie Pearson Dickens

Written by Anita Kartman with help from Ree Mairena and the MHA Times

To reach 106 years old, one is usually blessed with the right genetics and a life that is filled with love and joy. That is certainly the case with Priscilla (Hosie) (Pearson) Dickens, our mother, who was born on January 12th 1915 to Lottie “Bear Woman” (Styles) and George William Barron Hosie in a log cabin in the countryside of Nishu on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation on Arikara (Sahnish) lands.

Her early life with her parents was a joy to her with six siblings and a whole reservation to explore. Her father farmed, her brothers helped their father and mom helped her mother with the usual childhood chores until she started boarding school. She entered in the second grade in Mandan and said that there were several summers where she didn’t go home. She was graduated from Bismarck High in 1933 and from Friends University in 1939 with a bachelors degree in teaching and dramatic arts. This accomplishment was rare for a woman in those days. Only about 4% of women had completed four or more years of college. She was interested in sports throughout her education and played basketball and field hockey. She did a lot of dancing and was very happy to be a part of stage performances. Friends University is where she met our father, Forrest Pearson. She taught on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota for a time and in Nishu. Nishu is now under water from the Garrison Dam flooding.

Our parents lived on the Fort Berthold Reservation for six years and started their family of six children. They moved to Wichita, Kansas and later to California. Our dad loved California and they decided to stay in California for the rest of their lives but Mom missed her family back home tremendously. Saddened by the early death of our father at age 55 Mom chose the role of strength and managed to stay active in her church and live a healthy lifestyle. She remarried at the age of 82 to the late Felix Dickens of White Shield, North Dakota. That marriage was very fulfilling for her as it allowed her to reconnect with her native American family which she had always missed so much. The marriage lasted until the death of Felix in 2010. She returned to California two years after Felix died.

One Sunday, as Mom looked for photos to send to the MHA Times, she told her daughter, Ree, that “she loved all of the people in the Hosie and Dickens family.” She wished for all of them to “always remember the Lord and Creator.” She felt that her long life was due to the “gifts of a wonderful family, a good diet, staying active and a strong faith in the Lord.”