| NEWS
| SEPTEMBER 20, 2005
Prayers Answered
Evacuee finds salvation and love
after Hurricane Katrina
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| The Shorthorn: Sara Bookout |
| New Orleans evacuee Franklin
Nickye, left, and Felicia Hood discuss the colors
for their wedding with Capt. Sunny Chang on Monday at
the Salvation Army. |
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By Alyssa
Fry
Contributor to The Shorthorn
On a chapel pew in the Arlington Salvation Army, Franklin Nickye
told the story of his journey from desperation in New Orleans to
love in Arlington.
The only moment he thought he and his family might not have survived
was when they saw guns pointed toward them from an airplane. He
was not sure if they were police or the military.
At the chapel on Thursday, Nickye will marry his fiancee, Felicia
Hood, whom he met when he arrived at the center with his family
two weeks ago.
Nickye, his brother, sister-in-law and six nieces and nephews decided
to wait out the storm after Katrina hit but left after three days
and two nights.
The family headed toward the interstate where they were told trucks
would be there to rescue them.
“We put two tires under a table [as a raft for the children]
and went to the interstate, but there were no trucks,” Nickye
said.
He likened his journey to the biblical story of Moses, who fled
Egypt with the Israelites and spent 40 years wandering the desert.
He said he and his brother, whom he compared to Moses’ brother
Aaron, experienced many similar things.
“We had food and water coming off the bridge [of the interstate]
and in the story, the food came from the sky,” he said. “God
fed them every day, but they couldn’t keep it — every
day they had to go get more. We couldn’t keep our food either,
we had to go and get more.”
Throughout their trek to safety, Nickye told his family he would
find his queen at the end of the journey.
“It’s like God brought me to the promised land,”
he said. “I kept telling them, ‘I’m gonna find
my queen.’ ”
When he first came to Arlington, Nickye began searching for an apartment
with the help of Hood, who he liked right away, he said. He first
noticed she was a “praying woman,” which he said was
important.
“I didn’t want to be with anyone without knowing if
we were headed toward being married,” he said. “When
I looked in her eyes, I knew she was my queen. And not so much a
wife, but a queen — my queen.”
Because she was busy working, Hood did not speak to Nickye the first
day she saw him, but she noticed him, she said.
“At the end of the second day he finally caught up with me,”
Hood said. “He told me I was his queen, and I was, like, ‘What?’
Then he told me his story and said his family liked me.”
The center was busy Monday with the Arlington Hurricane Katrina
Housing Fair, among other things.
“We’re also having a wedding,” she said. “The
marriage license was purchased today.”
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