As a Ranger, Dixon broke up the largest oil field theft ring in Texas history, worked to solve the most infamous cold case in Texas history, sought the Phantom Killer, investigated a near-mutiny by cadets and veterans on the campus of Texas A&M, rushed to a rural county to head off a lynching, and kept watch over Texas during World War II. He became the go-to investigator for the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, governors, and the state legislature.
During the final years of his career, which coincided with the McCarthy era in the 1950s, he was the chief of internal security, charged with protecting Texans from the Red Menace.
Using Ranger Dixon’s meticulously-kept diary entries, Kemp Dixon now tells his father’s compelling story.
As a Ranger, Dixon broke up the largest oil field theft ring in Texas history, worked to solve the most infamous cold case in Texas history, sought the Phantom Killer, investigated a near-mutiny by cadets and veterans on the campus of Texas A&M, rushed to a rural county to head off a lynching, and kept watch over Texas during World War II. He became the go-to investigator for the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, governors, and the state legislature.
During the final years of his career, which coincided with the McCarthy era in the 1950s, he was the chief of internal security, charged with protecting Texans from the Red Menace.
Using Ranger Dixon’s meticulously-kept diary entries, Kemp Dixon now tells his father’s compelling story.
eBook
Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
Related collections and offers
Overview
As a Ranger, Dixon broke up the largest oil field theft ring in Texas history, worked to solve the most infamous cold case in Texas history, sought the Phantom Killer, investigated a near-mutiny by cadets and veterans on the campus of Texas A&M, rushed to a rural county to head off a lynching, and kept watch over Texas during World War II. He became the go-to investigator for the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, governors, and the state legislature.
During the final years of his career, which coincided with the McCarthy era in the 1950s, he was the chief of internal security, charged with protecting Texans from the Red Menace.
Using Ranger Dixon’s meticulously-kept diary entries, Kemp Dixon now tells his father’s compelling story.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781623492601 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Texas A&M University Press |
| Publication date: | 03/15/2015 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 240 |
| File size: | 13 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Chasing Thugs, Nazis, and Reds
Texas Ranger Norman K. Dixon
By Kemp Dixon
Texas A&M University Press
Copyright © 2015 Kemp DixonAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-62349-260-1
CHAPTER 1
YANKEE RANGER
ONE SPRING DAY IN 1932, NORA AND CHRISTIAN SPELLMAN WATCHED from their front porch as a car bearing the new boarders drove up the dirt road to their farmhouse. Nora barely noticed Carl Mull or his three seedy wildcatters as they climbed out of the car. Instead, she focused on the remaining passenger, who had bounded from the vehicle and was taking great, confident strides toward the house. He exuded energy and athleticism. He was young and handsome. He was, Nora hoped, a possible match for her barely seventeen-year-old Leona, who, watching from the back porch, had not missed a single stride.
This remarkable new boarder was Norman Kemp Dixon. Nora and Leona soon learned that he had been born during a thunderstorm early in the morning of June 30, 1908, in the township of Weathersfield, Vermont. His mother was Annie May Elsdon Dixon, a quiet, very religious woman. His father, Frederick William Dixon, was an all-around athlete who coached several major sports. He had served in the Spanish-American War, and during World War I he was in charge of organizing sports and recreation for allied forces in England. He made headlines at various times saving people's lives, as he did on March 25, 1913, when the Olentangy River flooded and drowned more than seven hundred people in Ohio and Indiana. In the town of Delaware, Ohio, where the Dixons were living, Frederick, a coach for Ohio Wesleyan University at the time, jumped into a boat with two students and rowed to a second-floor window, where three women climbed into the boat. Overloaded, the boat capsized in the raging current. Each man grabbed a woman and seized a branch as they were swept under a tree. Annie, blissfully assuming her husband was safe on campus, had her tranquility destroyed when a young man rang her doorbell and announced, "I just wanted to tell you that 'Prof' Dixon is perfectly safe in the tree, and we hope to get him soon." The three men and three women perched in the tree for hours, each man holding a woman in a waterlogged fur coat until they were rescued.
Norman's athletic, heroic father was his first role model. As a boy, Norman strove to emulate him, enthusiastically participating in all kinds of sports and, whenever possible, roaming through woods and along beaches. One day in Bradley Beach, New Jersey, when the boys in his sixth-grade classroom were too boisterous, the teacher kept the entire class after the bell until everyone had stayed silent for ten minutes. One ten-minute detention led to another and then another as one boy after another acted up. The students were becoming restless, and at one point Norman threatened a classmate. When the teacher dismissed the class, she took Norman by the arm and told the boy he had threatened that she would not turn Norman loose until the boy had reached the school's main entrance. The boy took off running as the class cheered, and when the teacher let Norman go, he gave chase. Catching up, he challenged the boy to a race, but instead the boy began swinging his fists. Norman, who had been taught to box, blocked and dodged the blows as his classmates (and their teacher) formed a ring around the combatants. But then the principal showed up and separated the boys, sending them home.
One of the witnesses was Ruth Woodbury, Norman's cousin. The Wood-burys were living with the Dixons, and Ruth reached home first, telling her aunt Annie about Norman's "beating up a boy." When Norman entered the house, he saw his gentle mother sitting in a straight chair across the room, her face as white as a sheet. Fearing she was ill, he rushed to her. "What did you do to that poor boy?" she asked, adding that she would have to go see the boy and his parents. It took some time, but when Norman finally convinced her that the boy was not hurt, the color slowly returned to her face. Norman loved his mother so much that when he did misbehave, her method of punishment was to simply sit down with a hurt look on her face. It always worked.
Tragedy struck when Norman was in the ninth grade in Asbury Park, New Jersey. His mother became quite ill and was confined to her bed for weeks. Because their father was on the road much of the time as a community organizer, trying to provide for his family on a lower salary than he had made before the war, Norman and his brother, Ronald, prepared the meals and washed the dishes and clothes. On the few occasions when Frederick made it home for a short visit, Annie would force herself out of bed and downplay her health problems. When Norman wrote his father a letter explaining the seriousness of Annie's illness, Frederick rushed home, fired their doctor, and hired another, who quickly diagnosed the problem as intestinal cancer. It was too late. On February 23, 1923, Annie died.
After living with friends through the following school year, Norman moved to Brooklyn to live in a boardinghouse with his father, who now was running a boys camp. The next year his father remarried and moved to Florida, where he and his bride established a dancing and bathing pavilion on Anna Maria Key, between Tampa Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. When Norman, who was living with relatives in Cleveland, Ohio, finished his senior year, he moved to Florida to help his father in his new venture. But in September 1927 he bought a new pair of slacks and a railroad ticket to Gainesville, where he entered the University of Florida on an athletic scholarship. For the first two days, with no cash on hand as he waited for scholarship funds to come through, he had nothing to eat but a package of Fig Newtons. On the third day, assured he would have his money the next day, he borrowed a dollar from a student and spent it all on food. "In those days," he recalled, "that bought plenty."
Norman joined the freshman football team and, after the season ended, made the boxing team as a welterweight. In March 1928 the university sent him to Mobile for the Southeast American Athletic Union Olympic Tryouts. After his first bout, the Mobile Register reported, "Norman Dixon, representing the University of Florida, put his team off to a good start when he laced Cecil Lee of Spring Hill, in a bout that took four rounds for the judges to reach a decision." Norman won, "rocking Lee with a bombardment of rights and lefts to the face and midsection." He finished the tryouts as runner-up for All-Southern as a boxing welterweight. After the boxing program ended in 1929, the student newspaper reported it a great success and singled out several for special comments, including the following: "Norman Dixon, possessor of worlds of stamina and nerve is going to carve himself a niche in Southern welterweight circles next year."
During that summer, while Norman worked as a lifeguard at the Larchmont Shore Club, on Long Island Sound, C. Paul Jennewein, a well-known sculptor, ran into a problem. The American Battle Monuments Commission, which planned to erect a monument in Tours, France, to commemorate the support services for the American Expeditionary Forces during World War I, had commissioned Jennewein's proposed sculpture of an Indian and eagle. Jennewein, wanting a real Indian to pose for him, located a prospect who claimed to be a cross-country runner and to be in excellent physical condition. Jennewein paid to fly him sight unseen from Arizona, but when he arrived, the sculptor was stunned. The Indian had no muscle definition at all. Jennewein put him back on a plane to Arizona.
An artist friend told Jennewein that his club had the best Indian one could want. He was somewhat dark-skinned and had great muscle definition. On a visit to the club, Jennewein took a good look at the lifeguard. Pleased with what he saw, he offered Dixon the job as a model, saying he could pose at his studio during his spare time from lifeguard duties. Curious and interested in this different kind of challenge, Dixon accepted. In the evenings the novice model took a short train ride from Larchmont to the Bronx, where Jennewein had his studio.
According to Shirley Reiff Howarth, editor of the International Directory of Corporate Art Collections, among the more than two thousand Jennewein models, drawings, and medals housed in the Tampa Museum, Indian and Eagle "is one of the most successful of Jennewein's bronze monuments." In 1932 it won the George D. Widener Memorial Gold Medal at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. A review stated, "It is a heroic figure of an Indian and an eagle, a work of monumental character which will top a high column." The memorial was unveiled in Tours on August 5, 1937. A photograph of the statue that Jennewein sent to his model shows a twenty-one-year-old Norman Dixon with one knee on the ground, his left arm raised and bent at the elbow, and an eagle perched on his forearm ready to take flight. Beneath the photograph the sculptor had written, "To my model Norman Dixon, gratefully C. P. Jennewein."
In September 1929, his modeling career over, Dixon was back at the University of Florida, where he had been elected to the student council for his junior year. But there had been an oversight: no scholarship money had been allocated for him. He was in debt to the school; he had no money to pay tuition or board; and his father, whose venture had suffered following the collapse of the Florida land boom, could not help. There was no choice but to leave. Dixon hitchhiked to Houston to enroll at Rice Institute, where he had understood he would be accepted, but he arrived too late for the current year. He headed to the Houston shipping channel, where he found employment, shipping out on the SS Glenpool, a Standard Oil tanker.
In port at New Orleans on November 26 he enlisted in the U.S. Army, hoping to be appointed to the Army Air Corps Flying School. He had dreamed of flying since the third grade. Sitting in class one day he heard a roaring. He rushed to a second-floor window but, unable to see the source of the sound, jumped to the ground. There he saw a biplane, its pilot seated on the center of the wing, hedge hopping, barely clearing the trees and flying over the school playground. The thrill was unforgettable.
Dixon was stationed at Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio, Texas. Within six months of enlisting, he received his appointment as a flying cadet in the Army Air Corps, an accomplishment made exceptional by the fact that, whereas he lacked a college degree, some cadets with college degrees waited two years for an appointment. The transcript of his flying records, dated May 14, 1931, shows that he completed better than 151 hours of flight training and had excellent flight-school grades but states, "Failed to meet the standard required in flying at the ACPFS." Two days later he signed honorable-discharge papers indicating that he had been "disqualified as Fl. Cadet." His character was listed as "Excellent." As he later wrote in his personal papers, he had "washed out." What happened?
Several months earlier, in hospital for an appendectomy and a tonsillectomy, Dixon had met Gene Ellen Mull. She was cute and flirtatious, and like other cute, flirtatious young women in San Antonio, she spent time with the flying cadets. Then, in May 1931, an officer made a pass at Gene—when she and Norman were a couple and might even have been married. The boxer in Norman took charge, and he slugged the officer. His military career was over. A married man (or married soon thereafter), he needed a job. He arranged to fly mail and conduct other flight business in Honduras, but the Honduran government switched contracts to another company. Leaving Gene with her family, he headed north, seeking flying jobs at every airport en route. Unsuccessful, he went on to Mamaroneck, New York, where he found work as a lifeguard, and in the fall he was hired as floor manager at the newly established New York Physicians Club, in Manhattan.
By the spring of 1932 Dixon's brief marriage to Gene was in name only, but because her father, Carl Mull, was willing to add him to his wildcat crew, Dixon returned to San Antonio. From there he rode eastward with his father-in-law and the other crew members to Smiley, in Gonzales County, where they turned southward on the dirt road to Yorktown. After about six miles they turned onto a two-rut dirt lane that meandered to Nora and Christian Spellman's farmhouse, where Mull's crew would board while drilling a well in a pasture adjacent to the Spellman farm. Leona's life was about to change forever.
Earlier that year Leona had been boarding at a home in Smiley while attending high school. Living in town gave her access to a life very different from that on the farm. She was playing cards, going to dances and ball games, and riding around with friends. It was a good life, but it was about to end, abruptly. One night in February she rode with a boy and another couple to a dance in Westoff, which among Smiley churchgoers had a reputation as a bad place, probably because of its dance halls. While the foursome sat in the car in the parking lot, Leona and her date in the backseat, he pulled out a bottle of whiskey and took a drink. Leona did not approve of drinking, and she began to cry. As luck would have it, Nora's brother, Roy Smith, was also in the parking lot, and he saw Leona crying. Misunderstanding what he saw, and not one to keep a secret, he told Nora that Leona had been molested by a boy in Westoff.
Nora, a strong-willed farm wife who did not trust her seventeen-year-old daughter living away from home, drove immediately to the Smiley school, pulled Leona out of class, took her to her boarding room and gathered her things, and drove her home, all without saying a word. That night the bewildered Leona slipped outside the house and hid in a grapevine arbor in the yard, where she cried through the night. Her good life was over, and she did not know why. She had not been molested in Westoff, nor had she seen Roy Smith there, so she had no reason to put the blame on that evening. It would be years before she learned why she had been yanked out of school and away from all her friends. She would never fully get over it. She was embarrassed and hurt at having infuriated her mother without knowing why, at having lived her life without a high-school diploma, and then, when she learned that it was all a misunderstanding, at knowing it was far too late to rectify.
Neither Nora nor Leona expected that the arrival of the new boarders a few weeks later would give Leona a new lease on life. But while Norman drew their attention, he provoked Leona's brother, Clyde. Among the Spellmans' six children, eighteen-year-old Clyde was the competitive one, always seeking a challenge, especially to his physical prowess. Throughout his childhood, Clyde had loved taking on bigger boys, and here in his midst was this Yankee who talked a little too fast to understand, who appeared to be very sure of himself, and who was lithe and agile. But when he did backflips across the yard, the last one over the fence, that was too much! In front of the family, Clyde challenged Dixon to a boxing match. What Clyde did not know was that his opponent was a trained boxer, and as Clyde flailed away, Dixon easily fended him off while landing his own blows again and again, until Nora and Christian stepped in to stop the fight. It was clear to the entire family that this newcomer had bested Clyde.
Norman Dixon did enjoy showing off. Leona's cousin, Louis Spellman, watched him scamper up the side of the oil derrick rather than climb the rungs. And when a part broke, he climbed down into the well even though red ants were swarming in it. The ants bit his arms, legs, and face, but he repaired the part and climbed back out, blithely brushing off the attackers, and returned to his normal tasks. Like Clyde, he took great pride in his ability to withstand pain.
Leona was Nora's main worry, and much to her satisfaction, this attractive young Yankee began paying attention to her daughter. He looked like a gift from heaven. One day, however, Norman's wife, Gene, very attractive, with beautiful skin and wearing a lot of makeup, came to the Spellman farmhouse. But she was not a threat to Nora's plan. When she entered the house, she walked straight to Leona and handed her a handkerchief of Norman's, as if to say, "He's yours now."
On Tuesday, June 28, 1932, the District Court of Bexar County granted the plaintiff, Gene Ellen Dixon, a divorce from the defendant, Norman Kemp Dixon. Later that day, Gene's attorney, McCollum Burnett, mailed the divorce papers to Norman at the Spellman home. The envelope, postmarked 3:30 p.m., probably reached him through rural delivery on Thursday or Friday. On Monday, Nora drove Norman and Leona to the Gonzales County courthouse to purchase a marriage license. The county clerk and the deputy clerk filled out the license and signed it—on July 4, a national, state, and county holiday. Nora was wasting no time. On Thursday, July 7, not one minute beyond the required seventy-two hours, Nora drove Norman and Leona to a preacher's house to be married. The preacher, a relative of Curtis White, Leona's sister Elna's husband, certified that he joined in marriage as husband and wife "Norman Kent Dixon" and "Leona V. Spellman," misspelling Norman's middle name. In rural Texas during the Great Depression, and at other times, couples married without announcements, bridal showers, wedding dresses, bridesmaids, or even a gathering of relatives to witness the ceremony. Money was always scarce. Even so, considering that no scandal was involved, Nora's haste was remarkable.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Chasing Thugs, Nazis, and Reds by Kemp Dixon. Copyright © 2015 Kemp Dixon. Excerpted by permission of Texas A&M University Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Preface,Chapter 1: Yankee Ranger,
Chapter 2: Oil!,
Chapter 3: Bits and Bullets,
Chapter 4: Slots and Goats,
Chapter 5: Goldthwaite,
Chapter 6: The Sheriff and the Socialite,
Chapter 7: Home Front,
Chapter 8: Rape and Race,
Chapter 9: Red River Ranger,
Chapter 10: Bad Men,
Chapter 11: The Phantom and the War Hero,
Chapter 12: Aggies Revolt!,
Chapter 13: Gays and Reds on Campus,
Chapter 14: A Lone Ranger,
Chapter 15: The Chief,
Chapter 16: The Fall,
Chapter 17: An Old Ranger Lets Go,
Notes,
Bibliography,
Index,