Dixie Moore Anderson Kirby

Dixie Anne Moore was born in Lynchburg, Virginia, the oldest child of Hugh Augustus Moore and Pauline Newton Moore. She graduated from E.C. Glass High School in 1952. Dixie was a Lynchburg girl through and through, and even when most memories were lost to her, she still proclaimed proudly that she was from Lynchburg, Virginia. She was also at home in Whiteville, NC, where her father traveled for the tobacco market and where her maternal aunts and their families lived.

Dixie won a scholarship to attend Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg, where she majored in math and gained lifelong friends. Back in Lynchburg, she was the first graduate of the School of Medical Technology at Lynchburg General Hospital.

During those years, she met and fell in love with Charles Edwards Anderson, a Lynchburg boy who was a cadet at the The Citadel in Charleston, SC. They were married in the summer of 1955, and Dixie became an Air Force officer’s wife. She loved every aspect of being “in” the air force—moving from Kinston, NC, to Greenville, MS, to Cheyenne, WY, and finally to Mountain Home, Idaho, where her first daughter Walker was born. As in grade school, high school, and college, Dixie made fast friends during the Air Force years.

The Andersons returned to North Carolina, first living in Goldsboro and ending in Henderson, where they settled and remained until Charlie’s death from lung cancer in 1989. Two daughters—Mary Hugh and Peggy—were born in Henderson. Dixie was active in First Presbyterian Church, where she sang in the choir, chaired the Women of the Church, led the young people’s group, and served as an Elder. An accomplished seamstress, Dixie made clothes for her girls, stylish outfits for herself and her sisters, and collaborated with Charlie on award-winning Halloween costumes. The entire family loved water skiing on Kerr Lake and trips to Ocean Isle Beach. She named Charlie’s beloved sailboat, the Yarn Spinner, and took a course in navigation at UNC so she could chart the course for trips up and down the coast.

In the 1970s, the administration at the new Maria Parham Hospital asked her to help form a medical technology department and teaching unit. She attended a six-week refresher course at Walter Reed Hospital in Bethesda (staying with old Air Force friends) and began training classes of medical technologists while overseeing the hospital lab.

After Charlie died, friends convinced Dixie to join the Northeastern North Carolina Chorale. The Chorale rehearsed in Louisburg, where the Methodist minister, also recently widowed, sang in the group. The resulting romance between Wallace Hines Kirby and Dixie lasted 30 years. They were married in Henderson in 1991, built a house together in Roxboro, and retired together to Givens Estates in Asheville.

Dixie’s maternal grandmother, for whom she was named, was a Baptist minister’s wife, and Dixie patterned herself after her grandmother’s example. Even though Wallace was retired, he was active in the work of the church and Dixie worked alongside with zeal, taking an active part in the life of the church at Long Memorial in Roxboro and Central Methodist in Asheville.

A highlight of this second chance at happiness was extensive travel—almost always with Duke alumni groups: New England and Niagara Falls, New York City, London, Vienna, China, Russia, Sweden, Lewis and Clark trip, Alaska, Taos and Santa Fe. Dixie kept meticulous scrapbooks of these trips, as well as scrapbooks chronicling the activities of children, stepchildren, grandchildren, relatives and friends.

Throughout her life, Dixie specialized in lengthy stories with extensive (and perhaps unnecessary?) background detail, racy jokes, very long telephone conversations, and making connections with everyone she met. She encouraged her daughters in every endeavor. Her final earthly adventure was to donate her body to the med school at UNC, which she committed to do 20 years before her death.

Dixie was predeceased by her husbands, Charles Anderson and Wallace Kirby, and her brother, Hugh Moore, Jr.

Survivors include daughters Walker Mabe and husband John of Raleigh, Travis (Mary Hugh) Lester of San Francisco, and Peggy Oskarsson and husband Anders of Malmo, Sweden; granddaughters Jensen Mabe of San Francisco, Kate Temple-Mabe and husband Andrew of London, and Charlotte Mabe of San Francisco; sisters Polly Mixon and husband Ben of Durham and Susan Aycock and husband Jim of Fayetteville, GA; brother Jack Moore and spouse Robin of Durham; numerous nephews, nieces, and cousins; and friends far and wide.

Special thanks to the staff at Morningside and Transitions Hospice, and deep gratitude to Dixie’s sister Polly, who was a faithful visitor, regular correspondent, and enthusiastic organizer of outings and celebrations over the past six years.

A memorial service was held at 11 am, Saturday, June 14, at Christ Episcopal Church in downtown Raleigh.

Donations in Dixie’s memory may be made to the Duke UNC Alzheimer's Disease Research Center. “When it comes to fighting Alzheimer’s Disease, we’re all on the same team.”

Brown-Wynne, 300 Saint Mary's Street, Raleigh is serving the Kirby family.