Dixie Dujardin:
CLASS OF 1961
Lincoln High SchoolClass of 1961
Seattle, WA
Woodrow Wilson Junior High SchoolClass of 1958
Seattle, WA
Dixie's Story
END THE SILENCE ON DOMESTIC VIOLENCE. You can help. Check out Dr. Phil's FB page.
I am now 71 years old and still active. It is 2014 and I have opened a jewelry store in my home I love jewelry so it is a lot of fun for me. My hubby, Ralph will retire the end of April after 36 years with the City of Everett. We are both looking forward to it. He will become a part-time jeweler then. The website is not finished yet. My store is called BELLWETHER LANE JEWELRY AND BOUTIQUE. Look for the grand opening soon.
I have been married to the same sweet guy for 24 years & looking forward to our 25th! He is absolutely my soul mate. How blessed I am to be married to him. For our 20th anniversary he gave me a Mercedes roadster hard-top convertible. He thinks it is hilarious when I drive it in cold weather with the top down and the heater turned way up! In Feb, I got a 25th anniversary ring a month and a year early. It is beautiful. I am so, so spoiled!! At my huisbandfs Everett H.S. 40th reunion I got to meet and visit with Jim Lambright. He is a wonderful, very gracioous man.
We moved to beautiful Bellingham in March 2008, from Arlington, and love it here. Hubby still works in Everett. He drives three hours a day. We have a large, beautiful home on five acres and I love to entertain. Christmas of 2007 I held a successful fundraiser. Friends helped me decorate and baked cookies for the event, as well as helped me at the event. A great time of working together for a good cause. I found I love fundraising and am very good at it. I will be volunteering in various capacities at our local Light House Gospel Mission. I am really looking forward to that, and to sharing my faith in Jesus Christ with the many homeless. Yes, God is there too, calling them to him. It doesn't matter if you are rich or poor, Jesus want you to have faith in him, believe in him, and give your heart totally to him for eternity. It is such a joy to walk with Him. It is the best thing that has ever happened to me, to know Jesus Christ and to have accepted him as my Savior and Lord in Austin, Texas in 1982, in a little Baptist church. I am Christian and Baptist and proud of both!! It has been an awesome, wonderful walk!!!
We had two black Lab-Mix brothers, born July 2001 Found out one had lymphoma & we were devastated. They are my babies, and he is my husband's buddy. We are so heartbroken. [ UPDATE: We lost our sweet little boy on Jan. 4th of 2010. He was diagnosed in June but we prayed for him and the Lord let us have him to love on all of that extra time. Other dogs diagnosed around the same time died almost right away! What an awesome God!! We miss our baby so very much. I will forever grieve over him. It is such a joy to remember the cute things he did. It was such fun raising two puppies from the same litter. I want to do it again.] Our other dog is loving being #1. He is completely spoiled, and we all love it.
We are Baptists and love the Lord. He is an amazing God. I have taught Sun. School and Children's Church. Also, My husband and I taught Children's Church together. If you will give your heart to the Lord Jesus, ask his forgiveness for all your sins, known and unknown, he will save you for eternity. What an awesome thought to spend eternity with Jesus Christ. If you are not sure about doing this, it is worth taking the gamble. What do you have to lose. You will find your answers to life questions in the Bible. It is amazing when you read the Bible how much it related to our lives. I am updating my story, but want to leave this paragraph in, wlthout I talked about it above. It is that important.
I have done some freelance writing and have written several children's spiritual books which I will publish soon. I wrote a story for a friend to use on a DVD and he has it copyrighted under his own name and is using it on his website. He loved what I wrote.
After two years at the U of W in pre-dental hygiene, I worked for over 20 years as an Executive Secretary. Lived nine years in So. Calif. and six years in Austin, TX. Loved So. Calif. and the desert. Hated TX and the humidity. I have long-time friends from all over, as well as child-hood forever friends. Have made many wonderful friends in Bellingham.[ My best girlfriend from childhood and her husband visited us in Sept.of 2010. It was the first time we had seen each other since a brief visit back to So. Dak. when we were both 16. And, my very best girlfriend that I met at a night class in San Diego in 1972, and who now lives in Portland, OR, and her husband came for a Thanksgiving visit in Nov. The guys cooked the meal. How great. It was so us girls could just visit. Wonderful time!!
I play classical piano & organ.I played organ at a church in TX for awhile. While I lived and worked in L.A., I was a member of the Los Angeles Professional Organist's Club. (No, I'm not THAT good!) One member played organ at the Dodgers games. Bought a violin & want to learn to play. Hubby gave me a spinning wheel so I have taken classes to learn how to spin.It gives one a new appreciation and love for...Expand for more
various fibers, their textures and colors. I even have a bit of camel hair to spin! I love to do thread crochet. Have made cherub pictures and had them framed. I am currently crocheting a Christening dress for the new baby girl of my best girlfriend's daughter. It will be beautiful!
I am also an amateur photographer. Have taken thousands of photographs and just go nuts with a digital! I am an avid reader, and have a huge library. Yes, I have read most of my books. I always need to have some waiting for me!! I am fascinated with history, especially about our previous wars and the Civil War especially. My husband's GRANDfather fought in the Civil War. Amazing. One would think it would be further back in his history than that.
Some things are very difficult to share. I think it is wonderful that children have resources to protect them from abusive home situations. And, it is time to speak out and talk about abuse in our lives to let others know where to go for help and that they are not alone. I can think of teachers who would have helped if they had known what to do, and my Girl Scout leader, but abuse was not talked about when I was growing up, so I was forced to protect my abusers. Not anymore. I am writiing a book about my life story, and speaking out about it. .Because I had to internalize the abuse, it has greatly affected my health in an extremely negative way.
From the age of seven, I was abused and tortured physically by my father and my brother. As it went on, I withdrew and became more fearful. There was no one I could tell, and I was very afraid to tell anyone, fearing repurcussions at home. For some reason, I still loved them. My brother was killed in an auto accident in 1994.It devastated me. I had a premonition of his death nine years before. I was living in Texas and had been praying for him.. I called him and led him to the Lord at that time. We took my father in and took care of him until he died. He was an extremely difficult man, but I loved caring for him. I guess it was because I have a caring nature in general.
My wonderful husband is able to see humor in almost any situation, and he has been so good for me. I am so thankful that the Lord put us together.
For some reason, as ithe abuse was happening, I managed to "stand up on the inside," and that helped me survive. I always had a lot of friends, and that helped me survive too. Moving to Calif.., away from my family, was a great help to me also. Thank God for all of my friends through the years.I thank the Lord for Darinka Brown, my shorthand teacher, who took a personal interest in my future.
The one person from my past who I'd most like to see again is Darinka Brown, because I would like to share my life story with her..She was my shorthand teacher, and was the one person to encourage me to go to college.No, it wasn't because I was a poor student. In fact, I was very good at it!!
DOGS, DOGS, DOGS, DOGS. and music, classical and 50's music.
If I could improve my home, I'd remodel the deck and add an a in-ground swimming pool. My dream home would be on the salt water.
All of my kids have paws, and they have taught me unconditional love and patience.
My most unique experiences in school involved me being in school plays. In the 5th grade I was supposed to spank a boy and I didn't know what to use so grabbed an eraser. His navy-blue corduroy pants had some white rectangles after, and everyone laughed. In high school I was in a play that was put on for a drama class. I was very self-conscious during rehearsals but when we put it on I knew I had to perform. Afterwards, Mr. Rideout came to me with a question mark on his face and said, "Dixie, you were really good." He could not believe it! I guess I couldn't either. I totally forgot what the play was, who was in it, and who the boy was that I was supposed to kiss. I don't recall if I went through with the kiss. If I did, it was my first kiss. You'd think I would remember that!
I have shared the story of domestic violence when I was a child because "Silence Hides Violence." That is the motto of the campaign against it. We have to do all that we can to protect innocent little children like myself from any type of abuse. So, I am silent no more. I suffer physically with Fibromyalgia. Studies have shown that early childhood abuse causes this. Mostly, women are affected. How sad is that!!
To blow off steam (see 'story wizard' I Type fast and furiously When I would get mad at a boss, I could type so fast and be so accurate. One girlfriend stopped me on day, and said "Dixie, slow down>" She knew what my boss was like. In 20 years, I had one good boss. That is sad too. He was Vice President of the Men's Store at J.W.Robinson's department stores in Los Angeles. I worked for him in the downtown store. A wonderful man named Richard Ford.
My husband is my hero. (story wizard also) He inspires me to be my best, and loves me when I can't be. I want to please him. He is a very funny guy, and since I am a writer, I keep notebooks handy to write down his quips. Some are unbelievably funny!
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