How do I recover Stickies?

I'll start by saying - there is no 'file /users/username/library/StickiesDatabase' for my OS.

There is no '/Users/username/Library/Preferences/widget-com.apple.widget.stickies.plist' for my OS.

I have tried to restore from time machine & when I do I get the error message:

“Stickies” can’t be modified or deleted because it’s required by Mac OS X."

I read the other thread on this. I researched online & tried everything I've seen so far.

I am fairly adept at figuring this kind of stuff out after some digging. Not a Luddite.
And I'm with all the other people who asked this question & were unable to resolve it with the 2 solutions offered - which were to find the files that don't exist on my OS - which is 10.7.5