DIXIE

My mother, Editha "Dixie" Reid, was born on January 30, 1913 in Manti, Utah and one of three daughters and two sons born to Edgar Thomas Reid and Ida Farnsworth Reid. Her great grandfather on her Dad's side was Frederick Walter Cox.  He was one of the very early settlers of Manti and a polygamist with five wives.  I'm related, some way, to anyone who has Cox ties in Manti.  In fact, a few years ago, I discovered a second cousin once removed quite accidentally.  He was someone that I had known for at least nine years through work situations.  It wasn't until I had an on call assignment to help him organize files when he retired that I learned he was from Manti and descended from Frederick Walter Cox.

The house where my mother grew up on Depot Street in Manti.

Even though the house I grew up in was built in the 1950s and no longer exists, my mother's home from the early 1900s is still standing in Manti.  The above pictures were taken about three years ago.

Dixie Reid, about age 20

Manti was a small, dirt road town when my mother was growing up.  She often said that she was just a nobody from the back water town of Manti, Utah.  But she ended up living in Washington DC where senators, congressmen, high level government people, including the Secretary of Agriculture were counted among her circle of associates.  For being a back water girl, she knew how to entertain at her own dinner parties and hob nob with the big wigs.

My mother was a fastidious homemaker.  Saturday mornings were always spent cleaning the house.  Since she kept things very clean during the week, the kids were given the deep cleaning chores like the bathroom and dusting the dreaded shadowboxes.  She knew how to bake and made wonderful pies, cakes, bread and rolls.  But her day to day family cooking was rather bland.  She was an excellent seamstress who made all of her girls' dresses, our play clothes, shirts, suits, baby clothes and doll clothes.

My mother from cancer in May of 1983.  She was only 70 years old.  I know that there were unfulfilled dreams in her life...one of them being able to travel.  My Dad couldn't see the need to travel and see other places. During her last days, she told me that she was rather angry that she was going to die before my father.  Since she was nine years younger than my Dad, she thought that she'd outlive him and be able to spend time traveling with her sisters.

Happy Birthday, Mother. 

OLDEN DAY PICTURES

In search for something else, I came across these pictures.  I could go back through earlier posts and add each to the ones that are applicable, but this is easier.  All of these pictures were taken the last time I was in Virginia...I think it was in the late 1990s.  I can't remember the exact year.  Maybe one of my brothers or sisters remember because we were all together on that trip.

Virginia Avenue House

 

 

This is where my parents were living in 1946, the year I was born.  Back then the house had a porch all the way across the front.  The trim was white

View from the side

 

 

6801 29th Street North

This is where I lived for 14 years.  Back then the house didn't have shutters or a red door.  The house was torn down not too many years later and replaced with a big two story McMansion.

Tuckahoe Elementary

I started first grade at Charles A. Stewart Elementary.  Tuckahoe was constructed when I was in the third grade. I attended fourth through sixth grade at Tuckahoe. Back then, Stewart and Tuckahoe operated with one principle and was known as Stewart-Tuckahoe.  At some point in time, Stewart was closed and torn down..

On the steps of the grand, colonial chapel

My sister and I also made a stop by the chapel of our youth at 1600 Inglewood Street.  It was pretty much as I remembered except the front doors are different and there had been some remodeling of the building inside.