James Dixon with friends in Guthrie Center, 1930s. James Dixon Papers [UA10028], University Archives, University of Iowa Libraries.
From the curators:
Adoptive parents May and Frank raised James Dixon (1928–2007) in Guthrie Center, a small town in southwest Iowa. May died when the future conductor was six years old. Frank died when the working conductor was 44. They were remembered by those close to Dixon as “wonderful people, although very poor.” He remembered them far less favorably.
In Dixon’s recollections, he lived “just south” of the train tracks for the Stuart to Guthrie Center branch line. He came of age during the Great Depression (1929–1939) and worked for local businesses in his youth. At age seven, he had a paper route for The Des Moines Register. At age 11, he worked in Sam Raymer’s barbershop, and by age 13, he was working for Ferguson’s Bakery. Dixon grew to appreciate the stalwart members of his community in these roles.
A need to work overshadowed interests in music beyond his trumpet playing in the school band. Recordings of orchestral music on a neighbor’s record player and trips to see Greek conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos (1896–1960), director of the Minneapolis Symphony (now Minnesota) Orchestra, had to suffice.
Dixon graduated from Guthrie Center High School in 1946. The “failure” of an unsuccessful year working on a farm pushed him, as he puts it, to “enter the unknown, uncertain world of music.” He decided to take Mitropoulos’s advice and study music at the University of Iowa.