Scenes from My Life
Annie Dix Meiers

Scenes from My Life      15

1. Changes I Have Seen 1902--1987
 
Transportation

Anyone who has spent eighty-five years on Earth has
seen many changes. But surely the past eighty-five years have
brought more changes than any century before. When I tell
my young nieces and nephews how things were when I was a
child, I have to remind them that it was all in the same
Twentieth Century.

In 1908, when I started school in Montgomery,
Alabama, my father was the secretary of the local Y.M.C.A.
He rode to work on horseback, on Monty, the horse that he
had "broken"--that is, tamed, domesticated, trained to be a
civilized horse. I would sit behind him, straddling Monty's
back, holding him around the waist. He would lift me off at
Miss Gussie Woodruff's School and ride on a block or two to
the Y.M.C.A.

When the school day was over, I would walk to the
Y.M.C.A. and wait for him to go home. Monty would be
hitched to a post at the curb, patiently waiting for his riders.
Monty was a gentle horse, as well mannered with a
 

16     Scenes from My Life

buggy as with a rider. When my father took my mother out ---
or more of us children -- he would hitch Monty to the buggy,
and we would ride as proudly through the streets of
Montgomery as families do today in their Fords and
Oldsmobiles. Though the buggy had a top, and curtains could
be attached to the sides, a ride through the rain was not
altogether a dry experience.

It was not until we moved to Mobile when I was ten
years old, that I first rode in an automobile. My parents, an
attractive and active young couple, were soon participating
fully in the affairs of the church. An elderly and wealthy
member, Mrs. Bush, bestowed upon them her friendship, and
favors, one of which was a ride in her automobile. One day,
she arrived at our house on Spring Hill Avenue with her large
car and chauffeur, to take my mother and her two girls for a
ride. Being the older, I sat in front with the chauffeur, while
my mother and little sister sat with Mrs. Bush in the back.

It was not until I graduated from high school, that my
father bought his first car, a Model T Ford. However, my
graduation from high school was marked by a most
memorable occasion. Mr. and Mrs. Bellingrath (later of
Bellingrath Gardens renown), neighbors on South Ann Street,
sent their car and chauffeur to take my parents and me to the
graduation. That was one of the gifts that I remembered with
deepest gratitude. Of course, the chauffeur didn't wait. We
came home on the streetcar like most of the other graduates.

All during my youth, the electric streetcar was the means
of surface transportation in cities, not only in Mobile but also
in New York. I was working on my Master's degree in New
York in 1929 and 1930. I well remember the screeching of
metal wheels on tracks as the streetcars came up and down the

Scenes from My Life      17

hill on Amsterdam Avenue. The power for the car came from
a large overhead electric trolley wire connected to the car by a
trolley pole. Therefore, the car was called a trolley car. In New
York, in later years, the wire ran underground, between the
tracks.

Of course, New York had had subways and elevated
trains for many years. Just before I came, the city had
introduced a new and more modern method of mass
transportation, the bus. The first bus was on the most scenic
route in Manhattan, Fifth Avenue and Riverside Drive. It was
a double decker, and the fare was twice that of the streetcars
and subways and elevated lines; that is, it cost a dime instead
of a nickel. It was not until the 50's and 60's that buses became
general in the city, and old streetcar tracks were taken up from
the streets.

In other modes of transportation, I have seen incredible
changes. When we moved from Montgomery to Mobile, the
harbor was filled with masts: schooners, barks, barkentines,
brigantines, and other sailing vessels. These were the ocean-
going ships. On Mobile Bay, however, there were two more
modern boats: the gasoline launch "Lucile" and the side-
wheeler "Apollo." Because we moved to Mobile in the heat of
the summer, my father rented a cottage on the eastern shore of -
Mobile Bay at Fairhope. There was no bridge or causeway at
that time; the only means of crossing was by boat. Men the
family crossed, it was on the "Apollo"; but my father's week-
end crossing to join the family was on the faster, but much
smaller "Lucile."

Later, we spent our summers at Daphne, also on the
eastern shore. We watched the schooners come to the near-by
pier to load the barrels of rosin and turpentine --products of

18   Scenes from My Life

the pine trees around us.

I was not aware when the steamships replaced the sailing
ships. It came very suddenly. It must have been while I was
away at college. Suddenly, I realized that there were no more
masts in the harbor.

In those days, the days of my childhood and youth, long
trips were always taken by train. The engines belched thick
black smoke, heavy with cinders. The ~indo~-s were not
screened, and the greatest hazard of traveling was the danger
of getting cinders in the eyes.

Soon after I graduated from college and was teaching at
Barton Academy, I was asked to go as Nature Counselor to
Camp As You Like It, near Little Switzerland in North
Carolina. Of course, the train was the usual and reliable
method of traveling. But something else had developed ---the
airplane. There was a scheduled flight from Mobile to
Montgomery; and to my family's surprise and shock, I not
only considered the flight to Montgomery, but made a
reservation to travel that way. I would be the first member of
my family to be so daring. From Montgomery to Little
Switzerland, I would go by train.

The day came for my departure, and the whole family
came to the airport to see me off. As the plane soared into the
sky, I felt sure that my mother was holding a family prayer-
meeting for the safety of my flight.

Recently, sixty years later, I have had an occasion to
arrange a trip to Little Switzerland. I remembered the train,
belching its black smoke as it chugged up the mountain. I
investigated transportation. Of course, the .airplane is the way
to travel today. The nearest airport is Asheville. But hew does

Scenes from My Life      19

one get from Asheville to Little Switzerland? I caned
Greyhound. No, there is no bus, neither by Greyhound nor
any other line. I called the Asheville Chamber of Commerce.
No, there is no bus; the only way to go is by car. But if one
has no car? The only way is to rent one How I wished for
that little old train, black smoke and cinders and all.

Other Changes

During these many years of my life, there have been
more changes, too numerous to mention, in all aspects of our
lives, from life-saving drugs to life-exterminating guns. I can
mention only a few, those that were part of my own life.
I must have been a naughty little girl, when I remember
the many switchings and spankings I received from my gentle,
loving mother. A twig from the peach tree, with the bark
stripped off, made the best little switch. It would sting the legs
painfully. I can't remember the number of times I turned my
little backside up for a good sound spanking by my mother's
hand.

And if my naughtiness was in saying something bad, like
"talking back" to my mother, she would wash my mouth out
with soap. If it wasn't something very bad, she would use
Ivory soap. But if it was something awful, like calling one of
my little brothers "thou fool, " for which the Bible said I would
be in danger of Hell fire (from which she ardently wished to
save me), she would use the strong kitchen Octagon soap.
We moved to Mobile when I was ten. I was placed in the
fifth grade at Raphael Semmes School. In the class was a

Scenes from My Life     20

street-smart tough kid, Willy Bates, who could have been a
replica of Clark Gable at eleven. He gave the teacher so much
trouble that she often had to send him to the principal. I
remember one day she had sent him out of the room. I don't
remember his transgression of the day. Probably he had
"sassed" the teacher, something even worse than "talking
back" to Mama.

Soon the principal appeared at the door, followed by
Willy. Standing in front of the class, Mr. Garrison said to
Willy: "Hold out your hands." Willy obeyed. Mr. Garrison
unbuckled the leather belt that he was wearing, and pulled it
off.

"Now your right hand," said Mr. Garrison. Wham,
wham, wham. Three times the leather strap hit the hand.

"Now left." Wham, wham, wham. Three times the strap
hit the other hand.

"Now, are you ready to apologize?"

"Yes, sir."

"Say it."

"I’m sorry I sassed you, Miss Smith."

"Now go to your seat."

My heart bled for Willy. He became my hero. He was so
brave; he didn't cry. "But he really should not have sassed the
teacher,” I admitted to myself. "Mr. Garrison was in the right
there. "

(With these memories, I could not share the sense of

Scenes from My Life      21

horror felt by many of my fellow citizens recently, at the
thought of an American youth being caned for deliberate
vandalism in Singapore.)

When I was young, malaria was endemic in Mobile.
There had been an epidemic of yellow fever, and stringent
measures had wiped out the stegomyia mosquito that
transmitted yellow fever. But the anopheles that transmitted
malaria still abounded. Insides of houses as well as the
outdoors were unprotected from them. Nobody had thought
of screens in windows and doors to keep them out. Malaria
was as common as the bad cold, and most people were not
made dangerously ill by it.

However, there was a method of protecting the family
from mosquitoes at night, Over every bed there hung a metal
frame, on which was draped a light cotton net. During the
day, it was raised by a pulley, to be kept out of the way. But
when we were ready for bed, the net would be lowered (very
carefully, not to enclose any mosquitoes) and tucked under the
mattress at the head and foot of the bed and on the sides like a -
sheet.

For the attacks of malaria, with its chills and fever, our
medicine was quinine, one of the half dozen drugs that served
all our purposes. The quinine was extremely bitter, and had to
be made more bearable by being mixed with cocoa into a sort
of drink called Cocoa quinine. Older children and parents
took their quinine in capsules. Fever, other than malaria, was
combated by "clearing poison out of the system" by taking
nauseating castor oil, a powerful cathartic. It was mixed with
 

22      Scenes from My Life

orange juice to make it more easily swallowed. The
predecessor of cod-liver oil and vitamins, petroleum
emulsion, was made more palatable by being mixed with a
little sherry wine, the only alcohol our parents allowed in the
house and for this purpose only.
 

When we moved into our permanent home on South
Ann Street, we were very fortunate to have, not only the new
electric lights, but also fixtures for the old gas lights in most of
the rooms. The flame was lighted by a match, as with a gas
stove. Around the flame was a globe or mantle of very sheer
and delicate material, which (as I remember) would heat to
incandescence and throw out a light much more brilliant than
the flame itself. The gas lights were lifesavers during the
hurricanes, when electricity was cut off by the city to avoid
danger from fallen wires.

We had telephones, of course. But when we wished to
make a call, we had to ring a bell on the phone to call
"Central", as the operator was called, and ask her to make the
connection. When we moved to Mobile, my father had to
have two phones in his office. The "Horne" phone was for.
residential calling, and the "Bell" phone was for business.
There was no connection between the two. Fortunately, by the
time I was ready for college, they were integrated and
everything became "Bell."

Now, with radio and TV, Fax and E-Mail, everybody
can know everything in the world as it happens. In those days,
the daily papers gave us the news. In Mobile, the morning
paper was the Register, the afternoon paper, the Item. When

Scenes from My Life      23

something particularly newsworthy occurred at an off hour,
the newsboys would go through the streets, even in residential
areas, selling papers and Crying out: "Extra! extra! Read all
about it!" If they cried, "Extra Item!" we would know it was
exciting but not world shaking, for example: "Extra! Extra
Item! Read all about it1 University wins pennant!" If the cry
was: "Extra Register! Read all about it! U.S. declares war!" or
"Lusitania sunk by German sub!"" we would know we had
better buy the paper.

One time it was: "Extra Register! Read all about it!
President Woodrow Wilson to stop in Mobile on way to open
Panama Canal!" We children were all taken out of classes and
lined up along the parade route on Dauphin Street. As the
Presidential parade came by, we all sang to the tune of
"Funiculi, funicula":

"Welcome, welcome, leader best beloved!
Welcome, welcome, leader best beloved~
To Panama, to Panama, on to our wondrous Panama!
Leader best beloved on to our wondrous Panama!"
 
 

Scenes from My Life      24

2. Ancestors

My sister-in-law, Eleanore Norby Dix, (wife of my
brother Albert), on her trip to New York City, was delighted
to find the names of her parents from Sweden commemorated
among those who entered this country through the reception
hall of Ellis Island, in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty in
New York Harbor. But, alas, none of mine are there. They
were already in this country many years before the Statue of
Liberty was erected in 1886 and the Reception Center was
opened on Ellis Island in 1892.

True, mine did not come on the Mayflower in 1620.
They came in 1630 with the Puritans under Governor John
Winthrop, and established the Massachusetts Bay Colony
where Boston is today. Our earliest Dix ancestor who came
with this group was Edward, whose name was spelled Deekes
on the ship's manifest. He and many others had come to these
shores seeking freedom of religion. But they soon learned that
the Puritan government of Winthrop was as intolerant of
dissenters as the English government had been of the Puritans;
so they pulled up their stakes and moved west, where they
founded the town of Wethersfield on the bank of the
Connecticut River.

A few years ago, I visited a friend in Hartford. My
 

Scenes from My Life     25

hostess drove me to near-by Wethersfield, where the town
historian showed us the land where John Dix had lived.
Adjoining it, the historian said, was the property of John
Wadham. Not surprisingly, John Dix Jr., fell in love with one
of his neighbor's daughters, Sarah Wadham, and married her.
Their son, Moses, was born in 1724, almost one hundred
years after their first ancestor had come to the New World.

So through the generations of Dixes succeeding John Jr.,
through Moses and Ozias and Daniel, Alexander Franklin Dix
was born in 1831, marking the two hundredth year that the
Dixes had lived in America. By this time, the Dix family had
moved even farther west into the state of New York. The
family of Daniel and Dyanthia Dix consisted of three
daughters and one son, Alexander Franklin, born in Wilson,
N, Y. The boy grew to be a scholar, a student and teacher of
Latin and Greek, a student at the college in Albany and the
University at Rochester and an ordained Baptist minister. He
fell in love with a girl of Pennsylvania Dutch descent, Helen
Beach, lovingly called Nellie, and married her on January 2,
1861.

Though this was only nine days before the state of
Alabama seceded from the Union, January 11, and the
situation in that Southern state was rather uncertain, he had
already promised to accept a position as teacher of Greek and
Latin in a Female Seminary (i.e., girls college) in Midway, a
small town not far from Montgomery; so he and his bride
embarked upon their trip South, and began their home in that
Southern town.

More states seceded from the Union, and established the
Confederate States of America with its capital at Montgomery.
War broke out between the Confederate states and those that
remained with the Union in the North, the so-called Civil War.
Most Northern people considered it a war begun by the South

26      Scenes from My Life

to retain slavery as legal. But Alexander Franklin Dix believed
that the war was not about slavery, but about a principle that
he had held in New York and brought with him to the South,
States Rights. He abhorred slavery, never had a slave, and
considered it immoral. But he believed that a state had the
right to leave the Union if it wished, and not to be compelled
by force of arms to remain. I remember as a girl how angry he
was when anybody suggested that he had fought to retain
slavery.

So Alexander Franklin Dix in Alabama, like Robert E.
Lee in Virginia, had to choose between two loyalties: loyalty
to the Federal Government or loyalty to his state. Both men
chose their state.

This was especially sad for Alexander Franklin. His
mother had died when he was only two years old, but his
father was still in the North, as well as the husbands of his
sisters and the brothers of his wife. If he joined the
Confederate army, he would be fighting against his brothers-.
in-law, all of whom he loved.

However, he joined the Confederate army, and in the
second year of his marriage was fighting in the battle of Shiloh
in Mississippi, under the command of General Albert Sidney
Johnston. His first child was born the next year; and as
evidence of his admiration for his general, he named the baby
Albert Sidney Dix.

It seems that five of his ten children were born while the
family lived in Midway. There he taught school and served as
pastor of the small Baptist church. After about nine years, he
was offered a better position at Mary Sharpe College in
Winchester, Tennessee. There the remaining five children
were born, including my father, Daniel, and his brothers Philo,
Paul and Murrie. His sisters, Dimple and Dollie --aged

Scenes from My Life     27

respectively, six and two --called their baby brother Lell, and
this became the name by which he was known by family and
friends. In later life, he adopted Lell as his first name and was
officially known as Lell Daniel Dix.

After finishing his service at Mary Sharpe College,
Alexander returned with his family to the Midway area in
Alabama. The largest town in the area was Union Springs,
where he became pastor of the Baptist Church.  A fellow
clergyman was the Reverend Francis McMurray, pastor of the
Presbyterian Church. His daughter, Mary McMurray Stakely,
had daughters nearer Lell's age: and the two families became
friends. One daughter was Annie Goulding Stakely, three
years Lell's junior.

As the years passed, Lell finished his schooling at Troy
Normal School, a junior college in Alabama, and became the
secretary of the YMCA in Montgomery. Annie Goulding
attended Cox College in La Grange, Georgia, first as a student
and then as teacher of art and astronomy. Their friendship
ripened, and they were married in 1901. They thus achieved a
most amazing coincidence, unknown to them at the time.
The reader will remember that in Wethersfield in the
early sixteen forties, John Dix and John Wadham were next-
door neighbors, and their families were united by the marriage
of John Dix, Jr., and Sarah Wadham.

Two generations later, John, Jr.'s, grandson, Ozias,
moved up the Connecticut River and settled twenty miles west
in Wilmington, Vermont. There he built a house that is still
standing. By the next generation, the son of Ozias, Daniel, had
moved his family to New York State. But the Wadhams
remained in Connecticut during the generations of John, Jr.,
Noah, Jonathan, and Susannah, who married Nathan
Holbrook.

28      Scenes from My Life

Soon after the turn of the century, 1800, a young
Presbyterian clergyman from Georgia, Thomas Goulding,
came to study at Yale University, in New Haven, Connecticut
By some chance, a daughter of Susannah Wadham, Anne
Holbrook, and Thomas Goulding met and became friends.  In
1806 when Anne was twenty years old, they were married
and left Connecticut to make their home in Georgia.

By all accounts, the Reverend Thomas Goulding, D.D.
and his wife, Anne, were an unusually attractive and desirable
young couple. Two of their parishioners and friends,
Governor and Lady Houston, presented them with a beautiful
lion-footed mahogany table from England, which has become
a prize possession in my family. At the death of Anne
Goulding, the table passed to her grand-daughter, Mary
Stakely, who in turn passed it to her daughter, my mother,
Annie Goulding Stakely Dix. Now I, another Annie Goulding,
though four generations removed from the original Anne
Goulding, am its proud possessor.

There was only one generation of Wadhams in Georgia
that of Anne and Thomas Goulding. Their daughter,
Charlotte, married the Reverend Francis McMurray and made
her home with him in Union Springs, Alabama. Charlotte’s
daughter, Mary Stakely, was the mother of Annie Goulding
Stakely, who married Lell Dix. Thus the two lines that had
been united by marriage in 1709 and then separated by a
thousand miles and almost two centuries were again brought
together in 1901 by the marriage of the Wadham daughter,
Annie Goulding Stakely, and the Dix son, Lell Daniel Dix.
 

The Two Family Lines
 
Dix Line Wadham Line
 Sir William Wadham d. 1452
 Sir John Wadham
 Nicholas d.1609 & Dorothy WadhamFounders of Wadham College Oxford!(No children)
Edward Dix m. DeborahCame from England with Gov. Winthrop  1630 John Wadham, --Wethersfield, Conn.
Leonard m. Sarah John Wadham 1655-1718Hannah Bidwell
John  m. Rebeccad.1711   d. 1714 Noah Wadham 1695-1783Anne Hurlbut
John   m.  Sara Wadhamb. 03/28/1685  b. 041516187d. 03/6/1770      d. 08/1/1741 Jonathan Wadhams 1730-1812Judith Howe
Moses  m.  Hannah Dickensonb. 03/18/1724  b. 03/29/1727d. 09/25/1795 Susannah Wadhams 1762-1839Nathan Holbroook
Ozias  m. Lucy Hatchb. 11/06/1758  b. 05/06/1753d. 12/18/1835  d. 03/12/1830 Anne Holbrook 1786-1878Thomas Goulding, D.D.(from Georgia)
Daniel  m. Dyanthia Butterfieldb. 03/16/1796  b.9/26/1795d.01/01/1892  d. 11/07/1833 Charlotte Goulding 1816-1850Francis McMurray. D.D.
Alexander F.  m.  Helen “Nellie” Beachb.  07/27/1831  b. 12/13/1838d.l0/23/192l  d. 04/14/1909 Mary McMurray 1846-1928William Stakely
Lell Daniel   m. Annie G. Stakelyb. 02/12/1873  b.8/4/1876d. 01/03/1960  d.01/24/1978 Annie G. Stakely  m. Lell Daniel Dix  b.8/4/1876           b.  02/12/1873 d.01/24/1978       d. 01/3/1960

Scenes from My Life      30

3. My Parents

Lell Daniel Dix and Annie Stakely Dix were the parents
of six children, the first five born in Montgomery and the last
in Mobile. I came first, named Annie Goulding for my
mother. Then came Mary Belle, called Dollie, for our father's
sister; then Daniel Stakely, for both our father and mother;
then William McMurray, for our maternal grandparents; then
Albert Sidney, for our father's oldest brother; finally
Alexander Beach, for our paternal grandparents.

Both parents were leaders, active, friendly young people,
in both civic life and their church, the First Baptist. Lell was
president of the local Rotary Club and District Governor of
the Southeastern Rotary District. His life emulated the Rotary
motto: "He profits most who serves best." He was chairman of
the Board of Deacons in his church; and earlier, as chairman j
of the Finance Committee of the church, he had mortgaged
his own home to enable the church to pay a debt and prevent
foreclosure of its own mortgage. He was chairman of the
Mobile United Fund drive to support charitable organizations
in the city, and held many other positions of leadership and
responsibility.

On his office wall was a motto: "There is no limit to the
good a man can do if he doesn't care who gets the credit."
-
Scenes from My Life      31

By profession he was District Manager of the Penn
Mutual Life Insurance Company in Mobile. He said to me
once that he felt that selling life insurance was as great a
service to others as the Y.M.C.A. had been. It helped provide
care for the bereaved wife and children if the father were
taken away by death.

He also had time for his children. I remember his
patience as he taught me to swim during our first summer on
Mobile Bay. I remember his pride, when I, his teenage
daughter, served as a maid of honor at the launching of a
battleship built in Mobile for the First World War. I stood with
the Sponsor, as she smashed the bottle of champagne on the
prow of the ship. My father and mother sat proudly with the
other invited guests behind us.

One thing shows another side of his character. By some
fluke, he inherited ownership of a Negro cemetery. (In those
days, there was segregation even in death. ) He formed a
governing committee of local black leaders, who met in our
"parlor" every month for business. The mores of the time did
not permit calling a black man "Mister." But my father would
not show the black men of his committee less respect than he
showed to his white business colleagues. So, instead of the
usual custom of first- name-calling, e.g. "John" or "Henry," he
gave every man his proper title: "Reverend" Brown, or
"Doctor" or "Attorney" or "Professor" (even for an elementary
school teacher), or whatever was appropriate. And if he could
find no appropriate title, he called him, as in church,
"Brother."

While he was dying of a heart condition, he was trying to
complete the sale of the "Cemetery Beautiful, " as it came to be
called. He was determined that it should go to someone who
would continue the tradition of respect. He rejected several

Scenes from My Life       32

lucrative offers because the buyers failed the character test.
Finally, he found a buyer whom he trusted.
The papers Were signed that afternoon, and my father
Went to sleep in peace -- a sleep from which he never woke.

My mother Was also a leader, but with her brood of six
children, she had less time for outside activities. However, she
served as a president of the Women's Missionary Society of
her church and president of the New Idea Club, the Dame of
which suggests the interests of its members.

But when I think of my mother, I think of her love of
beauty in all its forms. As student and teacher of art at Cox
College, she Painted many pictures. Each of her children and
grandchildren has one of them in his home. I have two: "Mary
Magdalene" in oil and "Wild Roses" in water color.

I am sure that she helped our father choose the house on
65 South Ann Street for our permanent home because it had,
at that time, the largest and most beautiful azalea bush in the
city. She loved all flowers and enjoyed Working in her garden.
Pansies always remind me of her. Her granddaughter, Carolyn
Dix Simpson, wrote and gave me a little poem, "In Grandma's
Garden." The first stanza reads:

Grandma had a garden many Years ago,
Daffodils and violets, Pansies in a row,
Roses in an arbor at the entrance there,
Lilies in the fish pond, mimosa in the air.

And she loved beauty in language, both prose and
poetry. Three of her poems are Published in the 1941 edition
of The Book of Modern Poetry, Avon House, New York, This

Scenes from My Life      33

12-line verse is titled "Blessed Commonplace."

O God. that we should e'er complain
Or cry monotony, as one by one
Our daily tasks recur, when every setting sun
Shines on us safe within our homes again,
When unmarred fields and lawns
Around us in rich beauty lie,
And peaceful moonbeams fall from out the sky,
And days serene are ushered in by happy dawns!
Have pity on those tragic millions where
Chaotic terror their wild footsteps trace!
Forgive our thoughtless thanklessness, safe keep us in Thy care!
Thank God for blessed Commonplace!

She lived to be 101 years old, surrounded by children,
grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. She was for several
years in the Heritage Nursing Home in Mobile, and, during
her last days, in the Mobile Infirmary. Her daughter-in-law,
Eleanore, tells of her last visit with Mama in the hospital.
As Eleanore entered the hospital room, Mama asked,
"Who is that beautiful lady standing by you?"
Eleanore replied, "There is no one here. I am alone."
"But I see her, " Mama insisted. "She is very beautiful,
and she is beckoning me to come with her. Surely you see her;
she is standing by you."

Soon, Eleanore kissed her goodnight and left. Shortly
after she reached home, the telephone rang. It was the
hospital. Mama had just passed away peacefully.

"Surely that was an angel that she saw," Eleanore
maintains.
 

 Scenes from My Life     35

4. Dollie: Her Early Years

Prologue

Sunday, June 14, 1981: I am sitting on the back porch of
22 Marston Lane with Dollie and Thompson, talking about old
times --happy memories of all the years. Dollie is sitting in her
usual chair, facing toward the West --toward the back yard,
beautiful with the grass and the trees and shrubs. She is
watching the birds: the blue of the jays, the red of the
cardinals, the gray and white of the mocking birds, and all the
others that she knows and loves.

Dollie is quiet and serene, with a dignity that is almost
regal. Though her lovely face is swollen from the cortisone
used to suppress pain from the tumor growing in her brain,
there is no complaint. She has told me that the doctor has told
her to come back in eight weeks. That is hope, and I tell her
that I will be back to see her in July. We laugh about how
Thompson used to court her in the swing on the front porch
of 65 South Ann Street.

I tell her that though she had a beau before I had, I was
never jealous of her, except for one thing. Her eyebrows go
up in surprise. "About what?" she asks. So I tell her. When
she was thirteen years old, she was a bit underweight; and our

36      Scenes from My Life

father, to help her gain weight, gave her a box of at least two
dozen large Hershey bars. She kept them hidden in her closet,
and was instructed to eat them at her pleasure, not sharing
them with anyone.
 

But I would occasionally snitch some of the chocolate
and never say a word about it. I confess that I was jealous of
her having the chocolates, and she never knew I took them!
"Oh yes," she says. "I knew all right. And the boys too." And
in my surprise I say, "But you never told on us!" She smiles
and shakes her head. That has always been Dollie --the best,
most loyal, most unselfish sister any brothers and sister ever
had.

Saturday, June 20: Less than a week later, back in New
York, I have a phone call from Albert. Dollie is gone. She is
sitting in her usual chair, watching her birds at the end of day.
She begins to feel faint, and Thompson and Ellen help her to
bed. Albert and Eleanore and Gossett and Marion are called.
As Thompson holds her hand, she goes to sleep --into her
final sleep. No struggle --just serene as she always was.

Saturday, December 8: Thompson phones to ask if I will
write down some things that I remember about Dollie before
he knew her at age seventeen. Of course I will. They will all
be happy memories, because Dollie was never cross or mean
or temperamental. All who knew her loved her. !

***************

I think I remember my little sister as a baby on 10 Scott
Street in Montgomery, where she was born on December 23,
1904. I was two years old at the time, with my birthday on
October 22, 1902. She was named Mary Belle, Mary for both
our maternal grandmother and for our father's beloved sister,
Belle called Dollie. According to the custom of the time, I
the older girl, was always called Sister.

Scenes from My Life      37

Our next house stood high enough above the ground for
the two little sisters to play in the sand under the house. The
favorite game was to find the doodle-bug holes and stir around
in the sand with a straw until the doodle-bug came up. The
last home in Montgomery was on Marshall Street, with space
enough for the horse Monty, the cow Bessie, a dog, rabbits,
and chickens. I remember how Dollie and I used to join our
father as he milked the cow, occasionally turning the cow's
teat toward the little girls' faces to squirt milk into their
mouths. Dollie would squeal in delight. I also remember how
she and I were called out late one evening to look up into the
sky at Halley's comet.

Since the family was growing --now with three boys
added to the two little girls -our father, who had been
secretary of the Y.M.C.A. in Montgomery, decided to accept
a position as District Manager of the Penn Mutual Life
Insurance Company in Mobile. So in 1912, when Dollie was
eight years old, the family took the train south to Mobile.
Since it was in the heat of the summer, the parents felt that it
would be better for the family to live in a summer cottage in
Fairhope until a permanent home could be readied in Mobile.
So we crossed the Bay to the eastern shore on the old side-
wheeler, the" Apollo."

Our first home in Fairhope was Shady Nook, one of the
cottages owned by a Mrs. Nichols, on the bluff directly on
Mobile Bay. The three older children, Sister, Dollie, and Dan,
played in the water, while our mother played in the sand with
the two youngest: William, aged three, and Albert, aged two.

All went well until an accident happened that almost
spoiled Dollie's summer --and in fact, endangered her life. As
she ran with bare feet along the sand of the beach, she stepped
on a piece of glass. The cut became infected. Since this was
before the day of antibiotics, the infection was an extremely
t serious matter, necessitating frequent visits of the doctor and
 

38      Scenes from My Life

the careful nursing of our mother. During the weeks when
Dollie could not go out to play, our mother entertained her 'by
reading aloud The Princess and the Goblin, which was
enjoyed by al1 the children. Fortunately her recovery was
complete, and she soon was able to resume playing in the sand
and water. Except for this accident, the summer at Fairhope
proved so successful that for many years it became our
summer home; and the trip over on the "Apollo" became the
big trip of the summer.

With the coming of fall, the family moved over to
Mobile to their new home on Spring Hill Avenue, directly
across from the beautiful ante-bellum General Praxton Bragg
House. This was then the home of Dr. John W. Phillips,
pastor of the First Baptist Church, his two unmarried
daughters, and the adopted granddaughter, Louise, just
Dollie's age, who became a friend of Dollie and Sister. All
girls were sad when Miss Norma Phillips moved back North
and took Louise with her,

During the school year, the sisters attended Raphael
Semmes School, far down Spring Hill Avenue towards town.
In their free time, the girls played paper dolls in the so-called
"tower room, " the one room above the first floor.

It was while living here, that Dollie developed scarlet
fever, at that time a very serious disease. A big quarantine sign
saying "Scarlet Fever" was tacked on the front porch; and for
many weeks the children were quarantined; that was, they
were not al1owed to go to school or play with children in the
neighborhood. Finally, Dollie recovered and the house was
fumigated with candles of sulphur.

Also, while we were living here, our youngest baby
brother was born, named Alexander Beach for our father's
father and mother. Dollie loved the baby; but since Sister was
the older, baby Beach became her special charge, of which
she was very proud.

Scenes from My Life      39

So the years passed, and the girls were growing up. They
were the "big girls, " and the four boys were their "little
brothers." For a few years the family lived on Dauphin Street,
an easy walk to the schools, Dollie's at Yerby Elementary and
Sister's at the high school, Barton Academy.

The girls' chore after school was washing and drying the
dishes. To entertain themselves during their job, they
developed a "poetry contest." One girl would quote a stanza of
a poem, and the other in turn would quote a stanza of another
poem. The quoting continued back and forth, stanza by
stanza, until one girl could think of no other poem --or until
the dishes were finished. Sister's favorite poem was "The Lady
.of the Lake," which, with its dozens of stanzas, lasted a long
time. Dollie's favorite was "The Pipes of Lucknow," with
almost as many stanzas. This was a narrative poem of the
rescue of a besieged British garrison in India by a company of
soldiers led by the bagpipers from the fort at Lucknow. Little
did she dream, as she quoted the stirring lines about the gallant
Scottish bagpipers, that before many years she would herself
be bearing a gallant Scottish name!

So more years passed until Dollie was seventeen years
old, and Thompson came into her life. The family attended
the First Baptist Church, where Dollie became an active
member of the BYPU, the Baptist Young People's Union.

During her senior year at high school, the state BYPU
Convention was held in Mobile, with the headquarters at the
First Baptist Church. Dollie was very much at the center of all
activity.

The State Secretary of Young People's Work was Mr.
Jerry Lamdin. One afternoon, as Dollie left to go home after a
meeting, she met Mr. and Mrs. Lamdin on the sidewalk near
the door of the church. She greeted them and hurried on to
take the streetcar home.

40      Scenes from My Life

Next to come out of the church was Thompson McRae,
a young theological student. He also greeted them..

Mrs. Lamdin pointed toward Government Street. "Do
you know that girl walking toward Government Street?" she
asked.

Thompson looked and shook his head.

"That is Dollie Dix, the finest girl in Alabama." she said.
"You would do well to get to know her."

"Thank you, ,. said Thompson, and, without a moment's
delay, hurried after Dollie. With long strides for a little man,
he caught up with her, introduced himself, took the streetcar
with her, and walked the remaining blocks to her house. And
thus began the romance.

But Dollie still had four years of college ahead of her.
She entered Judson College as a freshman when I was a
senior. But she soon became a celebrity among the girls of her
class. Though no formal engagement had been announced,
Thompson "said it with flowers" so forcibly that the whole
college knew about him and enjoyed the romance.

Thompson, at that time, had accepted his first pastorate
at Chipley, Florida, where a church member, who became a
good friend, was a florist. Every day he trimmed his rose
bushes and gave or threw away the roses that were ready to
open. Knowing that Thompson had designs on bringing a first
lady to the parsonage, he lent a helping hand. One day at the
college, Dollie received a large box labeled "Cut Flowers." On
opening it, she found roses -twelve dozen of them.

Of course, it was the ta1k of the college and gave rise to a
delightful story --which Dollie declared was fictitious. The
story was that, having an assignment to read a novel by James
 
Scenes from My Life      41

M. Barrie, Dollie went to the Library and asked for Barrie's
novel The Little Minister. Unfortunately it was out. "Then"
please give me Sentimental Tommy," she said. In 1926 she
graduated from Judson College with highest honors.

In the summer before Dollie's wedding in the fall of
1926, the International Rotary Convention was held in
Denver. Of course, our father, the president of the Mobile
Rotary Club, had to attend. h1 the faithful old Buick, with our
Mother and three oldest children, he drove from Mobile and
across Texas up into Colorado.

Though it was June, the snow in the mountains was still
deep, the first real snow the south Alabama young people had
ever seen. At Berthoud Pass we stopped for photos. Though
this was about 12,000 feet high, the ground was level and not,
dangerous. A bit farther on, we came to steep, snowy
mountains, a real challenge to the fearless --among whom
Dollie was one of the best. As Sister and Dan started up the
dangerous slope, they called to Dollie to come on. "Ob, no,"
she called back. "I won't go there. I promised Thompson I '"
wouldn't take any risks!"

And so we realized that, from now on, it would no
longer be just "Dollie" but "Dollie and Thompson." h1 this
way we welcomed a dear older brother into the family.

42      Scenes from My Life

5. My Sister and Brothers

Five of the six children of my parents lived to old age, if
threescore years and ten may still be considered old. And to
adapt the words of the psalmist: "Our lines had fallen to us in
pleasant places, and ours was a goodly heritage."

Dollie married Thompson McRae. They lived to see their
two sons, Tom and Dan, successful in work and marriage, and
to enjoy their eight grandchildren. When the Second World
War began, Thompson, already in the Naval Reserves, was
immediately called into active service, and spent the years of
the war as Lieutenant Commander of the communications
ship, the Mt. Olympus, in the South Pacific. During this time,
Dollie bought a house in Spring Hill, a quiet suburb of
Mobile, where she and the boys lived to welcome Thompson
home when the war ended. When the boys left home for
college and work and marriage, Dollie and Thompson
continued to make it their home until their deaths.

William was a scientist, even from his early years; and
the parents recognized this by assigning him a little room of
his own for his laboratory. This little room, on the back porch
outside the kitchen door, came to be called the “Antne Room;"
probably his younger brothers' mispronunciation of "ante
room." In it, he housed chemicals of supposedly deadly

Scenes from My Life      43

power, so that all of us avoided it in fear of death. Following .
in the footsteps of his older brother, Dan, he graduated from
the University Military School and from Washington and Lee
University, and continued graduate work at Brown University.
He then returned to Mobile, where he became chief chemist at
the Kraft Paper Company. He married Helen Louise Mosely,
"Weezie," and with her had one adopted son, Steven.

He was an avid stamp collector, and with his younger
brother, Albert, an enthusiastic "rock hound." In his later
years, he wrote many charming essays, most of them
philosophical, which he shared with family and friends. For
many years, he suffered from emphysema, which eventually
caused his death. A few years before he died, he and Weezie
were divorced and he married Mary Perkins.

Albert was the son of many talents. He was the beloved
family doctor to generations of Mobilians, and author of the
book, HUMOR, THE BRIGHT SIDE OF PAIN. He was a
rock hound par excellence, the donor of the Rock Garden to
the Mobile College and a cabinet of mineral specimens to the ~
geology department of the college. He organized and taught a
club of children (and their parents) to develop an interest in
and knowledge of the earth's minerals, and published for them
a little journal called "Hounds and Pups." When he retired
from medical practice, he was invited to teach in the geology
department of Mobile College. He declined because he had
other pressing things to fill his remaining years, writing his
autobiography and a book on the pleasure and value of rock
collecting. He was a member and the pianist of the Mobile
Rotary Club and recipient of their highest award, and deacon
in his church.

During his later years, he suffered from the deadly
ventricular fibrillation of the heart. For several years, the
Medical College of the University of Alabama in Birmingham
used him as a guinea pig, to test and approve a new drug for

44      Scenes from My Life

heart disease. Whenever and wherever he was when an attack
struck, he was rushed to the University Hospital by helicopter
or ambulance plane, where the treatment was applied and his
life restored. When the drug was approved by the FDA and he
was no longer needed as a guinea pig, he would be rushed by
his wife Eleanore (a nurse herself) to the Mobile Infirmary.

There, apparently dead, with no heart action, he would be
revived by artificial resuscitation, to return home and, as jolly
as ever, to continue his writing and to remain with his beloved
family; Eleanore, his two daughters, Carolyn and Eleanore
Ann, and three grandchildren.

After five episodes of artificial resuscitation, his tired
heart could take it no more. But he had Jived long enough to
welcome his first great-grandchild, Gracie.

My baby brother, Beach, was the last to go. After
graduating from the University of Alabama, he married Alice
Webb, the loveliest of all students I had taught at Murphy
High School in Mobile. They had three sons: Beach, Jr., John,
and Lell Daniel. An expert on color, he was an officer of the
Mobile Paint Company, one of the foremost manufacturing
concerns in Mobile. He was an active member of the First
Baptist Church and the Rotary Club, and maintained his
father's membership in the Alba Club on Dog River, where
Beach, Jr. could harbor his sailboat. Like his brother Albert,
he had inherited his father's heart, with various cardiac and
vascular problems. When Alice began her long battle with
cancer, he chose to undergo heart surgery so that he could be
strong to care for her during the painful days ahead. When she
died, he continued to live in their home in Mobile, where I
often visited him.

After his retirement, his hobby became golf, and he
played regularly at the Mobile Country Club with a group of
other retired executives. He claimed to be a poor player; but
he was lucky. He was the only one in the group who had " twice

Scenes from My Life       45

made a "hole in one." As the reader can see from the picture
in this book, he was the father of a large family: four children,
is nine grandchildren, and twelve great-grandchildren, dearly
loved by all of them. Though never taking an active part in
church affairs, he was one of the most deeply and sincerely
religious persons I have ever known. Never evangelistic, never
ostentatious, always tolerant of other people, in times of pain
and trial he found strength and comfort in a deep personal
faith.

In January 1992, on ret1m1ing from a short tour of Israel
with Lell, a bout with his heart kept him for several weeks in
St. Luke's Hospital in New York. On his recovery, Linda
brought him back to Mobile in a chartered ambulance plane.
My last words to him, as I kissed him goodbye in New York,
were from the Irish Blessing which he had given me: "May the
wind be always at your back, and until we meet again, may
God keep you in the palm of his hand."

The next morning in Mobile he died suddenly from a
stroke in the brainstem. But he had had a wonderful wit with
Beach, Jr., the evening before.

The greatest tragedy in my parents' life came in 1929
with the death of their oldest son, Dan, aged 22,a casualty of
the Great Depression. He was probably the most gifted of all
six children: scholastically brilliant, socially gracious, a young
man to whom the word "noble" could accurately apply. He
went to the University Military School for boys in Mobile. He
was a leader throughout his school years: in his senior year,
the class president and commander of the entire school
military battalion. The same pattern continued when he went
to college, to Washington and Lee, the "Southern gentlemen's
college." There he was always the leader: president of his
fraternity, and everyone's choice for the student who would
most succeed in life.

46      Scenes from My Life

But it was Dan's misfortune to graduate just before the
beginning of the Great Depression. His father, successful in
life insurance, was delighted to give him a desk in his office.
By 1929, the Depression struck with unexpected, hurricane
force. Banks failed. Money was not available. Unemployment
was rife. People were buying only the most immediate
necessities. Our father, formerly so successful, was now bare~ I
able to pay his youngest sons college tuition. 1, teacher at the
high school, taught many months without payment, but by
"scrip," a certificate redeemable in cash at some unspecified
future date.

The situation was impossible for Dan, day after day of
failure because no one had money to buy. He did not
complain, but one day in November, 1929, he ended his life
by jumping from the balcony of his father's sixteenth floor
office to the roof of a low building below. He left a note: he
was "weary of life." Thousands of others took their lives at
I this time.

No one then, in 1929, knew anything about what we
now call "clinical depression." They could only speculate
about the cause of the suicide. But today we know more about
it. This depression is not like the temporary depression we all
know at times, but a real, agonizing sickness of the psyche, the .
spirit. In his little book Darkness Visible, the novelist, William
Styron, a sufferer who survived, speaks of the pain as
"indescribable." He says that perhaps the most painful element
is the loss of self-esteem, and that the ending of most
untreated cases of such depression is suicide.
So today, sixty years later, we can understand Dan's
suicide, not a sign of weakness, but an element in the
agonizing sickness which life could no longer sustain. The
irony is that the good fortunes of his life did not permit him to
be inoculated with the antibodies of failure, which, in their
designed purpose, might have helped him survive the sickness
that overtook him.