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Motivation: This endeavor began in the weeks following the June, 2001 Dix Family Reunion at Cheaha State Park in Alabama. Having recently come into to the family photos after my father, Francis Dix Whigham died, I found a renewed interest in my family history and had asked those at the reunion to identify some people and places in the photos, that I didn't know. This led to a intellectual curiosity for many of us to learn more about our family by pooling our individual memories, photographs, and research. Acknowledgments: Gradually, but steadily, the circle of family contacts grew to the point that we had enough diversity of photographs, letters, and other documents to begin to piece together a timeline and pretty good record for not only Albert Sidney Dix [ASD], but his parents and siblings as well. Much of the information here is the result of numerous field trips, visits to libraries, state archives, and Internet sites. We now have made contact and received help from our Dix cousins from nearly all of our common ancestors. Special thanks to: Martha Whigham Picardy, for her photographs, and research at the Alabama State Archives, the Samford University Library, and hand written notes from interviews with our grandmother, Ruth Dix Whigham and for having the foresight to do this. Martha is the one who spotted Daisy Dix's grave at the Midway (AL) Baptist Church Cemetery, and made the connection for the initially cryptic "Allie" and "Dollie" engravings on the curbing of the Dix family plot in East Oakwood Cemetery, in Montgomery. Martha's power of deductive reasoning (using the only know copy of the 1902 Dix family portrait), helped us put names with most of the faces there. Lyn Smith Simonton, for entrusting me with her photographs that I've scanned for these pages, and for her research in and around Macon GA where ASD taught and preached, and to her husband Tom, whose many field trips to the Baptist churches in the surrounding towns of Perry, Forsyth, Reynolds, Butler, and Knoxville, led to heretofore unknown connections and information. Lyn also has shared memories told to her by her mother, Eleanor Dix Smith. Alice Newman Shannon, for contributing most of what we know about her grandmother Nelle (Dix) Smith / Rowden/ Montgomery. Alice has done virtually all of the research on Alexander Franklin Dix's [AFD] time spent in Winchester, Tennessee, where the last five of AFD's ten children were born. She also had the letter from Etta (Nicoles) Hanshaw / Browning, detailing what she knew of the Nicoles family history, and a letter from Dollie Dix during the time that she was a missionary in California and sent to her nieces, Nelle and Ruth in Knoxville Georgia, a location the we did not know ASD had lived until this was revealed. Thanks also to Alice's son, Jeff Shannon, for scanning, annotating, and sending all of the photographs and documents that Alice has made available to us. Frances Dix Chapman, who was the initial inspiration for my investigations into the Dix family history, and who has been diligent in keeping me informed of the mailing address of our living Dix relatives. She provided most of the photographs of herself, and her younger brothers, Bert, and Bill Dix, and their parents, Francis Albert Dix, and Louise (Turner) Dix, and many letters of the Dix family members corresponding in an effort to stay in touch over great distances. Shirley Brundage Jarrett, for her many contributions via e-mail and to her daughter Jeannie Jarrett Mobley, for handling the scanning of photos and document for her mom, and for keeping up with the most recent generations of the family. Shirley has also assumed responsibility for keeping us in touch with each other through her tireless efforts to organize and perpetuate the annual Dix Family Reunions. Mary Vernon (Dix) Sproles, and her son Ed Sproles Jr., for information on Paul Finch Dix and his wife, Mary Vernon (Nix) Dix, known to the rest of us as "Aunt Vernon". They have also contributed Mary Vernon's oral history that Ed transcribed, as well as many documents, letters, photographs, and copies of existing Dix history research. Mary Vernon is still active, having turned ninety on November 13, 2002. She and Ed made a return visit to the Ozias Dix home in Vermont in the summer of 2002. They solved the mystery of William Beach Dix's burial place, by making notes following a telephone conversation with Madeline Dix Reeves. Ed has been most helpful scanning and sending what they have. Ed has also put me in contact with descendants of Philo Castle Dix and "Dimple" Dix Hall. Ellen McRae, for being my link to Annie Dix Meiers, daughter
of Lell Daniel Dix. I found the New York
address while doing Internet searches on "Dix". A quick calculation
showed that she would have been ninety-nine years old, but I wrote to see
if . A few weeks later, Ellen called from "Aunt Ann's" to confirm
that she was Lell's daughter and though she'd lost her sight, was
still of very sound mind on both occasions that I talked to her.
We later heard from Ellen, that Aunt Ann had died on August 22, 2002 --
less than two months from her 100th birthday. Cousin Annie kindly
gave me permission to use extended excerpts from her book, Scenes
From My Life, in which she recounted events from her childhood
and some very interesting family history. I count myself fortunate
to have been able to get to know her, however briefly. Thanks again
to Ellen, for sending me her only copy of the book, for me to use along
with scores of pages on the family history, researched by her Uncle Tommy
McRae. Ellen also connected me with Ed Sproles Jr. Tom McRae: Tommy came to us via his niece, Ellen and ultimately from Lell Daniel Dix, one of Albert Sidney Dix's younger brothers. Before joining our DIX quest, Tommy had worked on his MCRAE family history, specializing in the DNA-Y project. This method of researching genealogy by our descendants matching genes, specifically the men with the same surname. Tommy confirmed speculation by others that we really don't know who Leonard Dix's father was and that all speculation earlier than that has been best guess assumptions that proved to be wrong. Sadly we lost Tommy at age 89 in 2018 before this was fully resolved. Betsy Davis, daughter of Jean Dix Allaway, and granddaughter of Philo Castle Dix along with Harlan "Robby" Robinson, Ellen's son, for being the source for most of what we have learned about Philo. Ann Howell, who provided us with invaluable information about Albert Sidney Dix and how he met his wife Isadora Nicoles in Brewton AL, as well as being a source for her grandmother, Issalee (Dix) Dismukes. Nancy Hall, who emerged as our Dimple (Dix) Hall contact and answered many questions about the largest branch of our Dix family tree. From Nancy's photo contributions, we are reasonably confident of the names of all of the Dixes in the 1903 family portrait. Mike and Caroline Lyon, who have contributed the "Lyon's share" of photographs and documents of Dimple (Dix) Hall's family. Eugenia Hobday, who despite being in the other hemisphere and halfway around the world, in Sydney Australia, has contributed a plethora of clippings and other information on the Dix and Hall families to our cause. Euginia is an Alabama girl with an interest in all things "Midway", where many of her relatives once lived. Will Allie Dix Jr., also known as "Little Billy" or "The Florida Bill Dix". He took to time to write me seven pages in longhand, answering questions that I had mailed to him about his father, Will Allie Dix Sr. (aka Uncle Billy"), and commented that, "I have never written so much in my life. No book report was ever this long". His sense of humor came across in his correspondence. This was in October 2001. On May, 11, 2002, we learned that he had died. Again I'm grateful that we had the chance to get to know each other. William Earl Dix Bill has been part of my life since my
earliest memories. We spent many happy weeks together at my grandparents'
home in Rutherford, AL, in summers of the early to mid-1950's.
Bill and I exchanged stories all summer long in 2001. The most touching
was his account of seeing his mother who had just died, being carried our
of the house, while he was nearly delirious with pneumonia, himself.
In September of 2001, I, along with my sister Ginny and cousin Martha,
met Bill and his wife, Pat at the old Whigham home place to reminisce about
those halcyon days -- looking for any hint of a landmark of were the house
stood, and returning to his Uncle Ralph's farm. Only later did I
fully realize how much that would mean to us both. We lost Bill on
July 13, 2002, following a brief illness. Martin "Marty" Dix Marty lives in Ohio and found us on
the Web. Marty has visited Wilmington VT and has done extensive
research on the early Dixes in America. Marty has also provided
many documents and Web links to help us in our mutual quest. Debbie Brown Debbie lives in California. She also found
us on the Web. Her Dix connection goes back to Polly Dix, daughter
of Ozias and Lucy. Polly married Joseph Brown. Debbie and
her sisters made a family history trip to Wilmington VT in the summer of
2014. Here's Debbie's Polly Dix Brown page. I want to also thank RootsWeb.com for providing the server space at no charge. Disclaimer: These pages are works-in-progress. Several are little more repositories for raw data at this time. The eventual goal is to make this a photo documentary of our recent Dix ancestors. I've attempted to reproduce the documents that were transcribed as faithfully as possible. Many, if not most, of the photographs have been edited to manageable sizes to save memory on the server and some cropped to eliminate borders and mattes. Where errors in documents have been found, corrections from the originals are noted. I have tried to give credit for each submission, but was not attentive to this in the beginning as I should have been. If you see your contribution here without credit, please let me know so that I can correct the omission. The same goes for and typing or spelling errors, as well as any errors of facts. I want this to be as accurate as possible. In the case of the spelling of names, I've done the best I can, but in some cases, the spelling of names have changed, so we'll just have to agree that misspelling doesn't count on these names, e.g. Nelle/Nell, Issale/Issalee, and Murrell/Murrie/Murray. The wife of Francis Marion Nicoles (whose on name has been spelled Nichols in some places and the original family name was McNicoles), spelled her maiden name "Holipeter", but direct relatives use the more common spelling of "Hollopeter". Contact: Feel free to use anything you find useful here (with proper attributions and credits, of course). If you have found this site in search of your line of Dix's, please contact Russell Dix Whigham at [email protected] to share your information. Thoughts and Comments: The most recurring phrase muttered to myself while working on this project has been, "I sure wish I had thought to ask about this when they were alive". It pains me to think of the wasted hours spent with my grandparents who had all of these wonderful family stories to tell for which we've labored so hard. I've studied a few hundred photographs while working on this. The few that have names, dates and locations are treasures to me. Please annotate your photos for your children. An equally, if not more important, aspect of this project has been the renewal of our family bonds. The unity of purpose, and the power of people working toward a common goal, enriches our relationships. Russell Dix Whigham =============================================== |