WWII ROBERT PROPHIT AND DIXIE

"Dixie" -- Daisy Angie Dowell Prophit Bayless

Dixie (born in 1913) . . . What a character this Dowell sister was! When I think of her now, I recall her behind the wheel of her blue Corvair convertible, with her trademark white hair (yes, it was natural) flying in the wind, a brilliantly colored scarf around her neck and her hands adorned with flashy rings and bracelets. (My father, Albert Schlueter, who spent more than 50 years dealing with my mom's close-knit sisters, had his own nickname for Dixie -- "The Stray Gray.")

Dixie had a wonderful laugh, an easy smile and a great talent for music. Her piano was her life and with it she supported herself and her son, Bobby. She played piano all across the Houston area, at style shows, country clubs and piano bars, either solo or with her combo of musicians, performing as "Dixie Bayless and the Dixielanders." All this performing she did without formal music training, but with her incredible ear for music, she could play almost anything, from a jumping boogie-woogie, to a series of patriotic songs, to a soleful church hymn.

She married glider pilot Robert Prophit during World War II, but they divorced and Robert passed away of tuberculosis. Later she married again to Joe Bayless and lived in Pasadena all her life, many years just a few blocks from sister Willie. Flamboyant and fiesty, she was also a loving aunt to her nieces and nephews and a doting grandmother to her two grandsons brought into the world by son Bobby and his wife, Linda. Grandsons Scott and Todd brought much joy to her life. The spirit of Dixie's love for her family, music and entertaining lives on in the yearly Dowell family gatherings.