Who Will Visit Dixie?

She was born on a cold dark middle-of-the-winter day, February 25, 1940 at home on Cedar Street in Ogdensburg, New York.  She was a beautiful child with blue eyes and silvery blonde hair, born as the second daughter and eighth child to a family that scraped by from day to day.  Always a happy girl, there was ever a smile or a tinkle of laughter escaping her pouty little lips.

She was a year and eight months old when her family moved to a new home on a farm October 31, 1941.  Little did anyone remotely guess that in a mere 37 days our country would be drawn into a European war by the dastardly sneak attack on the Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, December 7^th, ordered by the Japanese Government against a neutral nation.

Less than a month later, on January 2, 1942 the less than two-year-old Dixie would burn to death in a horrible accident.  She was laid in the ground in the Ogdensburgh Cemetery for her final nap, and remains there today.  Her mother toyed with the idea at one time of having her exhumed and reburied by her side in the Flackville Cemetery, but decided she was best off in her original resting place, not to be disturbed.

For as long as I live I shall occasionally stop for a short visit with Dixie.  I don’t think anyone else remains that ever saw her, or knew her.  When I, her last remaining older sibling am gone, who will weep for the child that had no chance to live her life?  Who will visit Dixie?