Hicks' mother died when Hicks was only fourteen years of age. In 1942, she married John Hicks, an engineer, and they had two sons, John and William. John Edward Hicks (b. 1945) had several brushes with the law, including a prison sentence for kidnapping. He disappeared in 1978, while he was facing more than 20 charges related to a 1977 incident in which he threatened harm to several customers inside a restaurant and then attempted to run over several of them in the parking lot. John Hicks was still missing at the time of his mother's death.