Wicks, Joseph, b. 1896-

Joseph Wicks was born in 1896 in Braggs, Oklahoma. Because he was one-quarter Cherokee he was an enrollee in the Cherokee Nation. This lineage has had much to do with Wicks' private and professional life over the course of his career, including a proposed appointment as Commissioner of Indian Affairs.

Wicks graduated from high school at Bacone College, a Baptist Mission school in 1917. He then went into the army, serving overseas from 1917 to 1919. Upon his return to the states he attended the University of Oklahoma during 1919 and 1920. He then left school and took a job as Deputy U.S. Marshal in Muskogee, Oklahoma from 1921 to 1923. While attending George Washington University Law School in Washington, D.C., from 1923 to 1926, he worked as a clerk in the Justice Department. Although admitted to practice law in Oklahoma, Wicks worked for the U.S. Treasury Department for a year and then as an agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation until 1928.

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