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 I was born in Dixon, Onslow County, Stump Sound Township, North Carolina, on September 18, 1941. The US government had recently "acquired" some of my family's land. Our home and buildings, my grandfather's store which contained the Dixon Post Office, the stables, the dairy building, the smoke house all were perched by Highway 17, shaded by no trees and next to houses of other people who had been displaced and were living on my grandfather's land because they had nowhere else to go.
We were lucky because we had land that was not taken into the government area. We were unlucky because we did not move away but stayed near the waterfront that had been so beautiful, while not being able to go near it. The government took the river, the bays and and the ocean front. Across the road the pink climbing roses that had been on my great-grandfather's house grew wild everywhere covering bushes and small trees.
My father, John Burbage Westbrook, and my uncle, Eugene Dixon, were away at war. My father was a medical officer in the Navy and was, among other campaigns, at Iwo Jima. Gene was stationed on the USS Missouri during most of his time in the navy and was there when Franklin Roosevelt was aboard at the end of the Second World War. My mother was working for the US Army as a photographer and my Aunt Louise Dixon was working at Camp Davis. My Uncle Brother, Lester Dixon, Jr. was 4 F and working for the railroad. In general it was a time of confusion and excitement.
My parents were divorced after the war and my mother married Max Lindholm who was adored by every child that ever knew him. He was back from 3 years in the South Pacific. Max's dream was to move to Kenya, Africa and homestead. My mother became ill and his plan was put aside. And that's how I avoided being in Kenya during the Mau Mau revolt. My sister Linda Lorey Lindholm, who is now an attorney in Scottsdale, AZ, was a baby boom child and Frank Dixon Lindholm, my brother, a book binder AKA Max Marbles who lives in Salem, Oregon, followed.
Dixon was my world until I was 14 and I went to Jacksonville to go to high school. I graduated in 1959 and went to Greenville, SC to live with my father who had remarried. I went to work for Carolina Blouse Company where I stayed until I married Alexander Matta Sullivan and moved to Erie, Pa.
We were in Erie for three years and my daughter, Laura Lorey Sullivan Cabiness was born there. Alex joined the General Electric Company's Manufacturing Training Program and we moved to Ft. Wayne, Indiana for a year. My son, Alexander Wayne Sullivan was born there. Next we were in Rome, Georgia and Salem, Massachusetts each for a year.
We then moved to Nahant, Massachusetts and were able to stay in one place for 5 years. I graduated from Northeastern University, Boston, Ma in 1972. I studied Economics and English. Of 154 Economics majors I was one of two females. Alex was transfered to Charleston, SC and we moved back south in the heat of the summer in 1972, just before Richard Nixon withdrew the troops from Vietnam. After being in Boston during the Vietnam era, moving to conservative Charleston was a shock.
In 1978 Alex and I separated and I went back to Boston to go to graduate school at Northeastern University where I studied Economics. I lived in Brookline for 7 years.
During my years in Brookline I worked with the Equinox Hospice until it was absorbed by the Newton Visiting Nurses group. That was the most fulfilling and fascinating thing I have ever done. It certainly was the place where I learned the most.
In 1985 my daughter graduated from Clemson University and got a job in Charleston, SC. I went to help her move into an apartment, was reunited with a dear friend, Louie Drake, and we were married that year. I have been in Charleston since then.
Charleston is a wonderful place. It has the best of two worlds, culture and the ocean and rivers. I love sailing and this is a great place for it.
I have been a computer geek since 1985, and can remember when I couldn't imagine what I'd put on the 10 meg hard drive of my first PC. I am obsessed with Web Design. I coordinate the Onslow, Duplin, New Hanover, Pender,Dobbs, and Jones County Pages...all part of the NCGENWEB Project.
I own a small
real estate management agency, The Drake Organization. But my major endeavor in recent years has been painting. I am a member of the Charleston Artists Guild. I do pastel portraits and impressionist oil landscapes. I love Charleston and it is a challenge to paint it in a way that is different from the paintings of artists who have been drawn here by its great charm..
So...if you think you may know me from somewhere, you might be right.
I have an abiding
interest in genealogy and also in the fate of the 800 or so families that were displaced
to build Camp Lejeune. A few years ago I was speaking to a past president of the Onslow
County Historical Society. She said, "Aren't you happy to have all thoses beaches preserved?"
meaning the coast of Onslow County. I was flabbergasted at her insensitivity.
I think the times were so painful that people just didn't discuss them.
Most were forced to move away. The rest were left to watch the change of what had been
a bucolic Eden change into a bustling quick grown military atmosphere.
I would like to write about this. And I would like to talk to people who remember
the time of change, and the time before. |