[1] Hicks was born in London, England, the daughter of a baker, George Martens, and his wife Elizabeth (née Joyner).
She initially worked as a domestic servant in Dunedin and then as a stewardess on the steam ships which ran between Invercargill, Bluff and Lyttelton.
At the time of their marriage he was the owner of the New York tearooms in Bluff near Invercargill, however, he had previously worked as a crewman on vessels of various types.
[3] In the small community of Mosgiel, Hicks was called on to assist in a variety of medical situations; in 1918 she was a volunteer nurse for patients of the influenza epidemic, and on one occasion she attended the scene of a train accident where rail workers had been killed and injured while at work in the Wingatui tunnel.
In 1922 Hicks left the nursing home in her daughter Edith's hands and travelled to England to visit her brothers.