Dr. James Nixon

James Dawson Nixon, who moved south to teach rather than preach and endured to dean a faculty that he respected and admired, died in Irving, Texas, on October 5, 2012, having been born on November 21, 1922, in Jonesville, Michigan, the third of five offspring of Lloyd and Pearl Nixon. He was preceded in death by his parents, by his brother Bill and by three sisters: Mary Mumford, Isabel Helrigel, and Beth Carruth.

Evelyn Ruby Nixon, Jim’s wife of forty years, died on June 21, 2007, to close a blessed second marriage for both.

He is survived by a son, Thomas Lloyd Nixon, of Penngrove, California, and a daughter, Pamela Jo Coller (Mrs. Mark), of Irving, Texas; by three California granddaughters, Jamilah Nixon-Mathis, Bethany Axiaq (Mrs. Emanuel), and Shawn Harvey (Mrs. Glenn); by three great-grandsons, Stephen, Ryan and Eric Harvey and great granddaughters Sophia Evelyn Axiaq, Natalia Alexa Axiaq, and Lucia Gold Peyer, all in California.  Surviving nieces and nephews and their spouses include Margo Gill, Susan Haynes, Gina Frazier, Gary Helrigel, Cathryn Pierce; Andy, Charles, Matthew and Bill Porritt; Gay Hanby, Paula Devlin, and Dawn Homard; cousins JoAnne Legge, Jeannette Morris, Jacque Wisman, Quentin Woomer and sister-in-law Ginny Ketelhut.

Surviving family from Evelyn’s side include Dr. William and Selma Sappenfield and their children Joshua, Olivia and Lisa in Florida; and Sherry Hawley of upstate New York and her sons Jeff and Bill.

Jim graduated from high school in Albion, Michigan, in 1940 and after two years in Albion College, declined draft deferment as a student minister and enlisted and served in the U.S. Navy for three years during World War II as a Hospital Corpsman (Pharmacist’s Mate First Class), with two of those years served on a destroyer (the USS Benham DD796), earning nine battle stars in enemy action in the Pacific from the Marianas Campaign to the occupation fleet in Toky