Eliza Carson Dixon, 1852-1930

Mrs. Brandt Dixon, wife of the Newcomb College president

It is unlikely Eliza Carson Dixon would have met or known Mrs. Newcomb if it were not for her husband’s position. Little is recorded of her. Her life, like the lives of so many middle-class women of this era, was defined by the work of her husband, while her work was taken for granted and largely unseen. She was never called upon to testify during the Newcomb trial proceedings and only one letter to her from Mrs. Newcomb was introduced into evidence. Three letters to her were saved in the McConnell family papers.

Mrs. Dixon was born in Caledonia, Missouri, graduated high school, where, as noted in his biography, Brandt Dixon was her Latin teacher, and married there in 1873. She was twenty-one when she moved with Dixon to St. Louis where their two sons were born, James Carson “Carson” in 1874, and William “Willie” in 1878. The boys were about nine and thirteen when the family moved to New Orleans. The Dixon’s remained close with the Carson family. Dixon was very fond of Eliza’s two brothers, Gibbon W. Carson who was a physician in St. Louis, and James T. Ronald Carson who became a Superior Court judge in Seattle. Mrs. Carson, Eliza’s mother, lived with the Dixons in New Orleans for a number of years and is often remembered in the letters to both Dixons from Mrs. Newcomb.

As the wife of a college president, much was asked and expected of Eliza Dixon socially and “politically.” Her name often appeared in the society columns, sometimes alone, more often along with her husband’s, as attending this or that tea or function. All her social and civic activities appear centered around the College and University. Her relationship with Mrs. Newcomb was a warm and trusting one, and they often communicated about mutual friends but focused mainly on the health and spirits of Brandt Dixon and his work, which they both appreciated, and her other family roles as mother and daughter.

Mrs. Newcomb also expressed in her letters a very real affection for the Dixon’s two sons, often mentioning that she had written to them, or asking to be remembered to them. Both boys had respiratory problems that appear to have been aggravated by New Orleans’ heat and humidity. Tragically, Carson died in 1896, at the age of 22, of “acute inflammation of the brain.” Undoubtedly Mrs. Newcomb shared with the Dixons the deep sorrow of losing a child. However, we find no mention of Carson’s death in Mrs. Newcomb’s letters to either of the Dixons, suggesting perhaps that they maintained a set of personal letters written by Mrs. Newcomb that they did not wish to share with McConnell.

The Dixon’s second son, “Willie” Dixon founded and ran the Dixon Academy, a boarding school for boys, from 1901 to 1909, in Covington, Louisiana. He later became vice-president of the Whitney Bank, then moved to Arizona. He had one daughter, Perrine, who as a child visited Newcomb campus often, and later graduated from there. In 1986, then Perrine Dixon McCune was chosen as one of a select group honored on the College’s centennial.