Dixie Garrett died peacefully on July 11, 2023 with family at her bedside. Born Dixie Lee Ashenhurst on August 5, 1936 to Grace (Holloway) and Hayes Ashenhurst of Lamoni, Iowa, Dixie went on to live a life unbent by convention.

Daughter of a military family, Dixie spent her early childhood in far off places such as Tsingtao China and the Phillipines, eventually settling in San Diego, CA. Her parents divorced when she was eighteen; each remarrying on the same day. After graduating from La Jolla High School, Dixie returned to Iowa to attend Graceland College. During her first summer break, while visiting her father and new stepmother in Sasebo, Japan, Dixie was to find her heart’s home. The people, country and culture of Japan were to remain Dixie’s life-long love.

It was while in her early 20s, pursuing degrees at San Diego State University, that Dixie met and married Rod Garrett, future architect of Burning Man’s Black Rock City. Dixie and Rod were counter-culture bohemians with a crowd of beatnik friends in North Hollywood, San Diego at Mira Mar Ranch, and in Marin County. Throughout both their lifetimes, Dixie and Rod told stories of high times with the likes of Lenny Bruce and Tommy Smothers.

The changing culture of the early 1960’s drew the young couple north to Sausalito, where they rented a houseboat on the bay and became good friends and neighbors with Zen philosopher Alan Watts and painter Yanko Varda. In 1965 the two divorced and Dixie was left with life-long heartbreak. As a single mom with two young girls in tow (Spring and Kelley) Dixie did what she could to make ends meet, teaching art classes and renting out rooms. A son, Manning, was born to her in 1969.

As her family’s black sheep, Dixie forswore undergarments, took up the teachings of Sant Mat and moved her children to far northern California in 1970. There, with a few partners, Dixie briefly opened and shortly thereafter closed “That Vegetarian Place” restaurant in Redding.

Inhabiting an artistic and intellectual soul, Dixie possessed a mastery of the spoken word and a keen wit. Dixie wove color and mood around herself in the form of poetry, pastel, sculpture and handmade clothing. She knitted explorations into ponchos. She wrote notes and brainstorms. She got frustrated and angry. She loved and enjoyed and exposed her kids to a wide range of open-minded, cultural experiences. Though the family was poor, Dixie always made holidays special for her children.

Dixie lived a quiet life with her kids under the giant oaks of Bella Vista in Shasta County for many years. In the late 1970s she “pulled herself up by her bootstraps” taking a job as the food stamp outreach coordinator for the FNICO (Far Northern Interior California Outreach) — an acronym she coined and proudly touted. Her new job gave the family a standard of living previously not experienced. Mid-life, Dixie and her second daughter traveled to Japan, where Dixie had the great pleasure of reconnecting with her adopted family the Hamasakis who called her “Dikusi-san.”

In the 1980s Dixie emerged as a creative force in the Redding community theater scene, taking on dramatic and comedic roles that were performed to great accolades and that are still fondly recalled by a great many fans.

After her kids had grown and moved on, Dixie spent many years in a little creekside house in Redding under a cool, leafy canopy. An owl lived in her tree. She had cats. Possum and raccoon were friends. She taught ESL at Shasta College. She knitted, she dipped in her soaking pool and she kept abreast of politics.

To be near her daughters, grandson and new granddaughter Dixie moved to McKinleyville in the early 2000s. Many fine family times were had there. Always a creative genius, Dixie explored computers and digital photography in later life, greatly enjoying herself and often capturing the sacred (and perhaps the profane) of everyday moments and minutiae.

Dixie is preceded in death by her mother Grace and her stepfather Charles, her father Hayes and stepmother Marian.She leaves behind much loved younger sister Ralene Rizzo (who sadly passed away three weeks after Dixie) and kindred-spirit brother Tracy DePue, along with her nieces Abigail Stout and Lora Davis and nephew Tony Rizzo. Dixie is survived by her daughters Spring Garrett (Mitch Higa) and Kelley Garrett (Sandra Rosas), her son Manning Garrett, her grandson Ryley Garrett, granddaughter Rayna Higa, cat Furnando and many dear friends.

Dixie was assuredly one-of-a-kind and will be greatly missed. One can see her in the setting sun, the rising moon, in butterflies and orange poppies. A memorial will take place at a later date. Please email springmay@mac.com for details.

Though Dixie bore the burden of ill health in her final years, she was a good sport about it and kept her sense of humor to the end. And, as Dixie was fond of quoting Looney Tunes, “the the the that’s all Folks!’