Frances Spicer

October 22, 1940, Frances Lucille Perrie was born in Tracys Landing, Maryland, to Edward Fletcher Perrie and Eleanor Ruth Gordon. Edward, a tobacco sharecropper in the 1940s, was a hardworking man with strong beliefs in the importance of family. He and Ruth would have six children together, Frances being the second oldest. She grew up helping Ruth with the daily household chores and caring for the younger children. Ruth taught her to cook, can vegetables, and make biscuits that her father loved so much. She loved to make them for the family and did so for most of her life, to everyone’s delight. She helped her siblings with the tobacco farm. One of the Maryland tobacco barns, where she hung tobacco to dry, still stands today, though in ruin.

Frances attended Southern Junior Senior High School in Tracys Landing. The principal regularly honored her as an "Outstanding Citizen" before dropping out in the tenth grade to get married. Once Women’s Suffrage was passed, she took her civic duty very seriously. She voted in nearly every election possible until her late seventies, when driving to the polls became too difficult.

Frances was married to Carl Curtis Hedges on October 18, 1957. Frances was just 17 years old, while Carl was a seasoned 41. Carl had lied about his age so as not to dissuade Frances’s father, Edward, from prohibiting the union. Though successful in wedding the farmer’s daughter, the age difference contributed to marital stress years later. Frances and Carl had three sons: James Edward Hedges, John Roman Hedges, and Edgar Logan Hedges. Their oldest son, James (Jimmy), born August 18, 1958, was tragically killed on March 12, 1965, in Neenah, Virginia. Jimmy was struck by a school bus he had just exited in front of his grandfather’s home. This event, one of two similar bus accidents involving an underage bus driver in the Copeland school district, helped change Virginia law to require school bus drivers to be of a minimum age of 18 but still fell short of the outcry for the minimum age to be 21.

At the time of the accident, Frances worked as a seamstress in the local Levi Strauss factory, where she sewed the back pockets on our beloved Levi jeans. The grief from the loss of her son led to her leaving that job to return home to raise her remaining son, Roman. Carl and Frances left the Northern Neck and returned to Maryland, in part to distance themselves from the constant reminder of their lost son. Frances went to work for Briggs and Co. Meat Packing and joined the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW Local 400). Growing up on the farm, Frances was no stranger to hard labor. The union, however, gave her benefits and wages beyond anything she had prior. During this time, Carl and Frances had their third son, Edgar, in 1969. Family ties in Virginia eventually pulled the family back to Virginia and saw Frances and Carl buying their first home together in the Northern Neck. A modest home built on what was known as Bells Acres, between Warsaw and Haynesville, would become the family home from 1973 until 1984.

Carl and Frances legally separated in 1977, but the separation did not last long, and they remained together until finally divorcing in the 1980s. Frances would go on to marry two more times, to Walter Nathan Taylor on December 14, 1985, and to Cecil Earl Spicer on April 11, 1998, both of whom she lost to cancer. After the death of her third husband in October 2002, Frances would remain unmarried. At the time of her death, she had lived through the deaths of three siblings, three husbands, and two children. Though repeatedly wounded by loss, her strength carried her through it all.

Frances was a charter member of the Tappahannock Women of the Moose. During her time, she held many offices, including Senior Regent and Recorder. She cherished the friendships she made during this time. The sense of belonging and achievement gave her a degree of purpose. From the eldest daughter on a farm to a wife and mother, her entire life had been devoted to others, and now she was doing things for herself.  

Throughout her life, Frances loved to cook and garden. She loved to have people in her home for conversation and community. She welcomed her children’s friends and always made them feel safe and at home. Frances was fiercely independent, even living alone until the last ten months of her life. She proudly displayed a plate on her wall that read, “This is my house and I’ll do as I darn well please.” She would recite this often, though replacing “darn” with another word more suitable to her liking. This was not a hollow philosophy; this was how she lived. When many people quit smoking later in life, Frances started when she was 42. She quickly made up for lost time by chain-smoking, often having two cigarettes lit simultaneously. Frances loved her bourbon. She regularly had a bottle of Evan Williams and graciously shared it with friends. Frances loved her family deeply. She gave her heart to her children and grandchildren, ending every phone call with, “Give my love to my boys.”

Frances gave of herself, often to her detriment, and her generosity was frequently abused. Even knowing this, she continued to be true to herself. As a mother, she was kind and caring. She loved and encouraged her children to love in turn. She always wanted a girl but gave birth to three boys. However, she found solace in her sister’s child, Linda. Frances would teach her many things she knew, including how to put on nail polish, much to her sister’s distress. Before her third marriage, the family often survived on wages barely over the poverty line. Still, her children considered themselves middle class, as she always managed to find a way to provide for them. She would use all her farm-learned resourcefulness to ensure food was on the table by turning a can of mushroom soup into a gourmet meal. Most importantly, she filled the family home with warmth, love, and laughter.

Frances was preceded in death by her father, Edward; her mother, Ruth; siblings Charles, James, and Anne; husbands Carl, Walter, and Earl; sons James and Roman; stepsons Roy and Wayne. She leaves behind her sister Eleanor, brother MacArthur, son Edgar, stepdaughter Cecelia Anne; grandsons Adam and Noah; great-grandchildren Acadia and Rhett; a beloved niece, Linda, who was indeed like the daughter she never had; and a list of cousins, nieces, and nephews too numerous to recount.

At 83, she defied life expectancies for a woman born in 1940. She survived tremendous loss and the largest pandemic of our time. Though much of her time considered women to be the weaker sex, she would dare any man to walk the road she had tread. Throughout it all, she was true to herself, living life as she would have it on her terms. She passed peacefully, knowing she had loved and that she was loved. A life well lived.

The family will receive friends on Friday, June 14, 2024 from 6:30-8:00 p.m. at Faulkner Funeral Homes, Marks-Bristow Chapel, Tappahannock, VA. A graveside service will be held on Saturday, June 15, 2024 at 10:00 a.m. at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 351 St. Paul’s Road, Warsaw, VA, 22572.