Army vet, one of first black women to serve, celebrates 105th birthday in style
Part Jewish and African American, Dixon (nee Ellis) was born and raised in a mixed Irish and Jewish neighborhood in Boston. Her father trained horses at tracks. Her mother looked after their family. “She had nine children. What else could she do?” Dixon said.
She said she had never heard of racial segregation until her family moved to the District in 1924, her senior year in high school. After graduating from Dunbar, she went to Howard University to become a bookkeeper. That lasted only a year, however, as her father struggled to pay the tuition. So she went to work, first at the Lincoln Theatre at $15 a week as a secretary, and kept taking night classes. Later, she landed a job at the Pentagon as a purchasing specialist.
“I bought everything from pencils to airplanes,” she said.
Alarmed by the appearance of spots on her skin, she enlisted in the Army, hoping to receive medical care for the disorder, known as vitiligo, which gradually changed her light brown skin to white. It was 1944 when she joined the Women’s Army Corps.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/army-veteran-one-of-first-black-women-to-serve-turns-105-in-style/2012/09/11/54e8a260-fc53-11e1-a31e-804fccb658f9_story_1.html
