I heard her before I saw her. She sat on the metal bleachers behind the home team dugout, calling out "Here we go, Casey!" Late, as usual, I took whatever space was left in the bleachers. It happened to be next to her. She sat alone. So did I. My little girls had scurried off to the playground near the ballpark. “One of these boys yours?” I asked, and she pointed to the red headed pitcher. Casey Hill. I remember thinking of the poem Casey at the Bat and how perfect that name was for a baseball player.
Her name was Dixie Hill, which suited her well. It takes an intrinsic thrust of the diaphragm to say her name. Her presence was powerful, from that first moment I met her. Kind of intimidating, to be honest. She seemed astute, confident, and friendly but not in need of friends. Both of our husbands were on the field, coaching the team of players that combined Farmington and Kaysville. The two towns‘ baseball leagues had been rivals, and this was a first attempt to combine the two. The fathers had enough forethought to consider bringing these boys together well before they would be playing in high school, so they could get to know each other, and build on each other’s strengths. The marriage of Kaysville and Farmington has been a blessing in our lives, because the families of these boys became our one familial team. After nearly a decade of hot summer days on hard metal bleachers, cheering for each other’s boys, you get to know the ins and outs of people.
Dixie was a force to be reckoned with. She was at the time on the School Board, and was well respected in the community as a leader and dependable representative. If I ever had a question about any civic matter, I could ask her and her husband Brent, and I knew I would get a straight answer. She was a liberated woman, in the purest sense of the word, and so refreshing to me in our community where “Zion” had a fairly benign white-bread connotation. I think we have progressed since then, but Dix… she was a woman before her time.
The first time I visited her home I had a rather abrupt pivot of thought. First, the place had a name. Because I am from Pennsylvania, I was familiar with old estates in the east that bore names, representing the personalities or the families of the landowners. Dixie and Brent’s place was named “Anne’s Rest”. Anne was Brent’s mom, who had previously passed away, and they named it in his mother’s honor. If I’m not mistaken, it is where Dixie nursed her until her death. The red brick house sat grandly on a corner lot on Angel Street in Kaysville UT, with enough breathing space between the outbuildings and an inviting porch in the front. Dixie Hill also had a back door that said, without words, you are welcome here. The driveway swept around the house, between the cattle barns and the fields. The lawn was immaculate, balanced with well-tended gardens and flowers. The fence held a series of American flag buntings, making the place magazine-spread worthy, and quite magical to the passing stranger and the friend alike. Red brick, against green fields bulging with rows of corn, made for an aesthetic that represented America at its finest.
Inside, there was a warmth and coziness that was stunning. I could sink into Dixie’s chairs, or couch, every day of my life and not have enough. Through the years I have spent random hours there, talking or sitting in silence, in a most unusual and peaceful way. That’s what stunned me, the first time I spent an afternoon there. How down to earth it was to be with this woman who could command respect and attention in echoing halls and meeting rooms. What some people did not know about her was how tender and delicate her heart could be, underneath that deep, commanding shell. I love her, deeply, for letting me in… to her home and her heart.
I remember when Dixie and Brent built the big red barn back behind their home. It was massive, and so lovely! It could house multiple cars, and farm machinery, and upstairs was a living space that became the hangout for our boys when they were in high school. I remember being a little jealous of that barn, because the boys had hung out in our basement before it was built, and afterwards I rarely saw them all together in our home. Those boys and their girls created many memories in that space, most of which belong to them alone. I am grateful that Dix had the foresight to build that space before our kids were grown and gone. Later, it became a place where her grown children could house their new families as they were starting out.
Dixie had impeccable taste! Once or twice movie production companies used their place for filming. I loved watching how they transformed one of the old barns into a movie set for an episode of Touched by an Angel. They used her living room and dining room as they were, because they were so authentically historic. She hired special wallpaper people from faraway places to come make their place just right. She had an ability to capture every detail and create a place that evokes certain feelings not found in most places. What made the place so evocative, however, was not the aesthetic as much as it was the spirit of the woman who created it.
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| Dixie's Barn |
Dixie put on a good solid front. She always looked put together, even when she hurt. And that was most of the time. She dealt with lupus, among other things, and her body, while we are grateful it was able to house her massive spirit, was often in turmoil. She didn’t see much value in complaining (like I do), so not a lot of people were aware of how taxing that had to be. She pushed through, making the people most precious to her feel loved and cherished. Her grandkids were her greatest treasures, after her own kids, and they knew it. She built a pool for them, and also for Cammie to use for her renowned swim school. The long swing hanging from the massive tree in the yard, and the trikes and rocking horses and other playthings witnessed her heart: “Come and be here, in this place, and make it feel like home.” We once had dreams of doing a folk festival there, before life pulled our dreams out from under us and replaced them with other sweet realities.
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| Dixie's Treasures |
Dixie almost singlehandedly nurtured her first grandchild, Emma into life. Emma had not been expected to live, and if she did survive, was not expected to live very long because of a major heart condition. Emma’s parents were thrust into serious adulthood early-on, and they are remarkable people, Casey and Kysha Hill. But Dixie’s arms held that girl and never let go. Emma is an adult now. She spent a good amount of time with her Grandma Dixie, and Grandma Dixie’s phone became the thread between Emma and me. She would text me, and we would chat with clicking fingers fairly often. Recently Emma got her own phone and began texting me. Last week she sent this text while I was shopping in Costco:
“Grandma Dixie is still in the hospital now.”
I tried texting Dixie to see what was up, but got no reply. So, I called Casey. The next week was filled with the zig-zag stitching of hope and sorrow, the kind of stitching a heart needs to hold together in trying times. Dixie’s stubborn nature worked for her, and against her. Or maybe we are giving that thought more credit than it actually deserves. Dixie believed she would die the same way her father had, from a lung disorder that was genetic in nature.
“I won’t hang on as long as he did.” She told me.
Whether it was her stubborn determined will that made it happen, or whether it was the Lord whispering to her that it was to be, and she let the Lord prevail, I guess it doesn’t matter, because either way, Dixie Hill ended up going back to the Lord she loved. It left us stunned and reeling. How can the world spin without losing its balance, with such a loss? I believe it may take a while for the reality to settle in.
When someone we love passes, we are compelled to pause from life as we know it. That’s a good thing. We should pause, out of reverence if nothing else. We stop and remember, pulling up images and moments that need to be recited over again so they can me imprinted on our hearts as well as our minds. In one tear-stained afternoon I am on a metal bleacher with that deep throated woman cheering for her boy, and I am in a downy soft chair in the sitting room of her house, then on a woven chair beside her pool, and in every place we are sharing each other’s hearts. We are on the phone, reconnecting after a year or two of busyness. Then I am walking beside her along the paved lane outside her home, and a cool autumn breeze is causing her to pull her sweater in around her heart. I am with her over and over again, in my memory, and God willing, I will be with her in the not-too-distant future when she opens the back door to Heaven and says, “Hello my friend, come on in.”
https://www.lindquistmortuary.com/obituary/Dixie-Hill
