Part 3: Africa

(Click Pictures to Enlarge Each)  

  Less than a year after the Dixons were married, Gardner was offered an exciting job opportunity.
   My grandfather received a two-year contract to serve as a carpenter and engineer, to help build stores in Africa for the U.S. firm known as the African Union Company.

   On May 13, 1922, the Dixons set sail from New York City, for a two month journey to the Gold Coast of Africa, as it was called at that time, and now Ghana.

(Pictured: Ship's travel schedule and menu.)

(Pictured: The Gardner's 1922 Passport.)

    Soon after arriving in Africa, her parents were shocked to learn that the company that employed them had gone bankrupt. They were left without money and a means to return home to the U.S

  Aunt Lois recalls her parents pointed out that, “They soon realized only God  could provide a way to get them back home.  They were already Christians, but the desperate situation encouraged them to increase their Bible study, prayer life and dependence on God.
     In doing so, God helped them to understand and accept the fact that Saturday is the true Bible Sabbath.
    There is a possibility that they may have been influenced by Seventh-day Adventist missionaries who were in the area. While still stranded in Africa, they kept the Sabbath to the best of their knowledge. They promised God that when He got them back home safely, they would find a Sabbath keeping church.”

  
   “My mother miscarried twins while in Africa, which may have been a blessing,” Aunt Lois explained. “Some of the villagers were superstitious. My parents were told the villagers might not have understood how a woman could have two babies at one time.

   They might have labelled her, an ‘Evil Woman’ and might have killed her. My parents believed God allowed her to miscarry.”
    Aunt Lois recently learned that her maternal grandmother, who was my great-grandmother, gave birth to twins, who as toddlers, died after some type of accident.” 

   Twins run in our family as Aunt Lois is not only the mother of a son, but also identical twin daughters.

     The Dixons were stranded in Africa for four years. On October 5, 1924, their first child was born in Accra. They named him Lucian, after his paternal grandfather, and his middle name, Meek, was his mother's maiden name.




(Extra Material not included in the Oct. 8, 2016 presentation--Gardner Dixon's 1924 letter to the U.S. Govt. requesting help):