 Rufus Cornelius Hickman was born in 1922 in Mineola, Texas.Towards the end of the 1920s, during the Great Depression, his family, consisting of his father and brother, relocated to Dallas in order for his father, a railroad Pullman, to find work as a cook at the Baker Hotel.Throughout his early life, Hickman spent much of his time selling newspapers and magazines, such as "The Courier Magazine" and "Woman's Home Companion."