SALTof the CITY
A SugarCoated Life Written by JESSICA LEIGH LEBOS
MOST OF US LEARN to accept the bitter parts of life, but Dixie Crystal Dickey will tell you, “It’s all been sweet.” Such a sentiment reflects an admirably amiable attitude — but the sharp-witted nonagenarian is also playing off the French expression toute de suite, which means “hurry up.” It’s a linguistic vestige of her Cajun roots: her ancestors settled in Port Wentworth to open the Dixie Crystal sugar refinery in 1916.“Everyone we knew worked there,” recalls the 92-year-old,
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whose father was one of the original mechanical engineers who built the plant. She married a nice Irish boy, William Dickey, who signed on with the company after the wedding and blended in like a spoonful of sugar. The Dickeys raised their own brood of four daughters in the village until the early 1970s, when the plant expanded to meet the growing demands of a global sweet tooth. The family settled in the Windsor Forest neighborhood, and though the
historic factory village was paved over for parking lots, the intimacy of its denizens remained. When she lost her husband at 46 to a heart attack just a few years later, Dickey allowed herself to be buoyed from her grief by the kith and kin of the refinery. “I was so lucky; I always had so much family around me,” she says, adding that the company, now part of an international conglomerate, continues to honor his pension after all these years. Family scrapbooks reveal that Dickey was born a redhead with twinkling green eyes and an easy smile. The flaming hair has long turned white, but her eyes still sparkle as she describes the following decades with joy: water-skiing off of Kings Ferry Landing in her 50s, traveling to Europe in her 60s, meeting Mother Teresa in her 70s. Although she never remarried, the selfdescribed “firebrand” enjoyed a few dates, especially if they could do the jitterbug. “Eventually, I got myself a boyfriend so he could take me dancing at Johnny Harris Restaurant,” she remembers with a smile. She’s witnessed harsher times — the Great Depression, sending off her brothers and sister to fight in World War II, the tragic explosion at the historic sugar refinery in 2008 that killed 14 — with a deep compassion for others and approaches each day with the same strategy she applies to her bridge game: “You’ve got to play the cards you’re dealt, play as smart as you can and don’t whine.” These days, she watches the sunsets from her home on Dutch Island, often surrounded by her doting daughters, all of whom live close by. Now that she’s had the COVID-19 vaccine, she also gets plenty of visits from her eight grandchildren and who-knows-how-many great-grands. “A dozen, maybe? I quit counting,” she says, laughing. She always tallies up her blessings, though. “I never thought I’d be here so long. I’ve lived through everything! All that’s left are my children.” And that, she guarantees, is the sweetest thing of all.
Photography by KATIE M C GEE
