Hikmat Al-Khouri

Hikmat Georges Al-Khouri of London, Ohio, died peacefully at Mount Carmel East Hospital on Sunday after a long and full life of hard work, compassion and devout faith. Hikmat was that rare individual who melded an industrious and analytical nature with an innate empathy and warmth for everyone who crossed his path — stranger, friend and kin alike. But above all, he was a man dedicated to those closest, who bound the near and distant members of his family into a web of love and kindness. He was 92.

Hikmat was the third of six children born on June 11, 1933, to father Georges Issa Al-Khouri, a well-known and admired goldsmith and jeweler, and mother Terousa, a seamstress, in Baghdad, Iraq. Hikmat’s father endowed him the perseverance and tenacity he would need, having been an orphan himself whose Christian-Turk mother and father had been caught up and killed in the Armenian genocide during World War I. At barely grade school age and alone, Hikmat’s father and uncle were smuggled by fishermen from their homeland near the Iraq-Turkey border to a Catholic monastery in Baghdad where they were raised by nuns.

The monastery taught Georges the goldsmith trade which through tireless work eventually would result in a grand home with a courtyard where Hikmat and his siblings grew up. The boys — Farid, Hikmat and Fikrat — all were active and had mischievous streaks. But the Al-Khouris by then had the wherewithal to send their children first to a Jesuit prep school in Baghdad, then to America for higher education throughout the 1950s. Though his older sister Albertine and older brother Farid were sent to the United States first, Hikmat stayed behind and worked in his father’s goldsmith shop. He kept himself occupied with sports including what would be a lifelong love of boxing; he was appointed captain of the Baghdad College prep school boxing team, though he suffered a one-punch knockout in his first and only bout and thereafter limited himself to an administrative capacity.

Having read Farid’s glowing written accounts of life and freedoms sent by mail from the United States, Hikmat eventually so pleaded with his father to send him, too, that Georges finally relented. He arranged in 1952 for Hikmat to stay in the home of the Silverbergs, a Jewish family acquaintance in Holland, Michigan.

There, at age 19, with no family or friends, Hikmat had to attend the local high school for a year to brush up on his English and various remedial studies required for entrance at Aquinas College across the state in Grand Rapids. Versed in only Iraqi culture, Hikmat wore a suit and tie to his first days of class; fellow students at Holland High School believed the shy young man was a teacher. This affinity for snappy attire in every circumstance would thread throughout his life.

Hikmat eventually adapted, though it was difficult at first. Accustomed to a sunny arid Mediterranean climate, he had no suitable clothing until a kind local family gifted him a coat and hat and various winter wear to endure freezing Michigan. Once at college in Grand Rapids, he put his head down — literally and figuratively. He worked three jobs while obtaining his U.S. citizenship in 1955 and his accounting degree in 1957. He followed that with a MBA from Michigan State University.

At Aquinas, Hikmat met and eventually married American student Mary Mitchell. They married in 1958 and quickly had three beautiful children — Joseph (born 1959), Teresa (1961) and Anna (1962). Hikmat was well on the way to a PhD. But a brief kidney illness and the weariness of working three jobs for the past several years, at a Steelcase furniture store, a jewelry store and the Aquinas cafeteria, while raising baby Joe, derailed that quest.

Still, Hikmat landed a good job at General Motors’ Fisher Body plant in Flint, an epicenter of the American automobile industry in the 1950s and ‘60s. There, in the quiet, clean working class neighborhood on Bede Street, he became known as the ultimate good neighbor, generating close ties with those in the homes around him, welcoming newbies, smiling and greeting those he would come to know well. A familiar neighborhood sight: Hikmat, or “Al” as he was sometimes nicknamed, would not bother to change out of his formal office attire and instead go right to work mowing the lawn in suit and tie on summer evenings after he arrived home.

On Sundays, the Al-Khouris always attended Mass together at Holy Redeemer Church, Hikmat sometimes stopping off on the way home to treat the kids to Dawn Donuts.

Always the first to offer help before asked, Hikmat assisted the children of his siblings when they began arriving in the U.S., sensitive to their lonely and homesick plight in a new land he’d known firsthand. He helped any way he could, a little pocket cash here, a letter of recommendation there, an ear to listen and tell them it would be all right. He particularly sponsored and assisted Farid’s sons, Bassam and Basil, who migrated to the U.S. in the 1970s.

After his children all graduated Flint Southwestern High and left home to chase their dreams, and with General Motors’ Flint headquarters severely downsizing in the wake of mid-‘70s Arab oil embargo and the subsequent Japanese auto invasion, Hikmat retained his position but was in 1983 offered a transfer to one of Fisher Body’s satellite locations around the country. He chose Columbus, Ohio — of course, to be nearer his family; sister Albertine had already moved there and raised her own family. Youngest child Anna followed him and enrolled at Ohio State.

In Columbus, Hikmat soon met the woman who would be his second wife, his partner, confidant and eventual caretaker for his final four decades. From the time Hikmat and Maurea Alicea met dancing to disco music (he was an accomplished ballroom dancer) at a north Columbus singles night in 1986, to their marriage in 1992, through three homes in west Columbus and London, Ohio, the two were inseparable. He would affectionately call her “my life wife”. She called him her “Baghdad Bandit”. 

Family, close and extended, flocked to their lovely home on Lake Choctaw in Madison County for summer days of kayaking, barbecues and games. Hikmat loved his role as host and hub, pouring drinks, grilling chicken, telling and laughing at stories, whipping up scrumptuous Arab specialties of dolma, tabbouleh and baklava. It was a happy place where kids and grandkids made memories.

Hikmat’s final years, though challenged by the usual physical hardships of advanced age, never drew self-pity or voiced complaints. He faithfully attended services when physically able at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in London. When asked how he was, his response always boomed back in his familiar gravelly baritone with a broad smile: “I feel great!”

And that’s how he made everyone around him feel, right to his final days.

Hikmat Al-Khouri is survived by his devoted and loving wife Maurea and her family who loved him dearly; son Joseph Al-Khouri of Flint, Mich., daughters Teresa Jackson (husband Fred) of Ann Arbor, Mich., and Anna Jones (husband David) of Downingtown, Pa.; siblings Fikrat Al-Khouri of Walnut Creek, Calif., and Mary Rose Al-Khouri of Phoenix, Ariz.; grandchildren Jeremy Jackson (wife Olivia) and Joshua Jackson of Ann Arbor, Mich., Nicholas Jones of Delray Beach, Fla., and Paula Flannery of Argentine, Mich.

A gathering of friends and family will be held at JERRY SPEARS FUNERAL HOME of HILLIARD, 5471 Frazell Road, Hilliard, Ohio, on Monday, October 6, 2025 from 12 to 1 p.m. A service will follow. Family may gather at the gravesite on Tuesday, October 7 at 11:30 a.m. at Sunset Cemetery. Mass at St. Patrick Church in London will be held at a later date. In lieu of Flowers, please make donations to St. Patrick Church.

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