Deacon Steve Dixon has been a parishioner of St. Rita Church in Alexandria for most of his 75 years. He attended St. Rita School, as did his wife, Thana. After they married and had their twin daughters, Donna and Debbie, the family continued worshipping and volunteering at the parish. For the past 10 years, he’s served the parish as a deacon. He describes the St. Rita community as his “second family.”
“The parish was such a strong influence in our lives,” said Deacon Dixon. “We wanted to be involved because God had given (my wife and me) so much that the little bit that we could give back was the least that we could do. We tried to stay active because this is really our home away from home.”
Deacon Dixon, who was born in Washington June 23, 1946, began attending St. Rita as a baby after being adopted by his parents through Catholic Charities. St. Rita School opened in 1952 and he was a member of the inaugural first grade. At the time, the Sisters of St. Joseph from Chestnut Hill, Pa., ran the school. “Sixty kids in one classroom and one nun,” he said. “If you got out of line, you suffered the consequences. For one teacher to be able to control and teach that many kids, it’s amazing. We got a great foundation in the Catholic faith from the sisters and the priests.”
For his first year of high school, he attended the now-closed St. John Vianney Minor Seminary in Richmond before discerning he was not called to the priesthood. While in high school at the now-closed Hammond High School in Alexandria, he began to date Thana, who was a friend of his younger sister Susan.
“We dated through high school, went to some proms together and then through college,” he said. “A year before I graduated, we got engaged and when I graduated in ’69 we got married. We were married for 47 years before she passed away in December of 2016.” The couple briefly attended other parishes as they moved around Northern Virginia, but they often drove back to St. Rita. A few years after getting married, they returned to Alexandria for good.
“(I) moved to the house (I currently live in) when I was in the seventh grade at St. Rita and I lived in that house until I was married,” he said. “Mom and Dad continued to live there and then it got to the point where they couldn’t take care of the house anymore, it had too many steps and things like that. They went to Washington House (retirement community) to live and my wife and I moved in (to the house).”
As the couple raised their daughters, much of their free time was spent at the parish. They were involved in youth groups, volunteered at the annual bazaar, and decorated the church for Easter and Christmas. Deacon Dixon served as a lector and a cantor. Gradually, he began to discern a call to the permanent diaconate. But the Arlington diocese’s diaconate program was suspended at the time.
“Then one day Father (Denis M. Donahue) called me up and he said, ‘Bishop Loverde is going to (reopen) the diaconate formation program and you need to apply right now.’ So I did,” said Deacon Dixon. Coincidentally, his spiritual director while in seminary, Father Frank J. Ready, was one of the priests spearheading the program. “When we hit the ground running after ordination, I think we were as best prepared as we possibly could (be),” said Deacon Dixon, who was ordained in 2011.
After retiring from the financial services industry, Deacon Dixon worked as a substitute teacher for many years. More recently, he works part time at Everly Wheatley Funeral Home in Alexandria. He was there so often for his diaconate pastoral work that the director offered him a job. “It’s a very rewarding type experience because I can draw from my ministry as a deacon to help folks get through a very tough time in their life,” he said.
At the parish, he also prepares couples for marriage, takes Communion to nearby nursing homes, leads adoration and benediction, and occasionally visits the school children and religious education students.
He still stays close to his daughters, both also parishioners who live only blocks away from him. His daughter Debbie is the parish business manager. He has three grandsons and a great-granddaughter. “They’ve been so good to me,” he said of his daughters. “They take turns having me over (for dinner) almost every night. We have a very close family and I think that’s a tribute to my wife. She kept the family together very closely. We all learned a lot from her.”
Though Alexandria has changed and grown since his boyhood days, Deacon Dixon believes there’s still a homey atmosphere. “I can go almost anywhere and be at any function here and know people,” he said. “I still feel there’s a small hometown feeling here in the city and particularly in this parish. People who go to church here come because of that feeling of community, that being part of something bigger than we are and that can offer us so much more in our faith than we can give ourselves.”
