The Life of Carolyn Good Dixon
by John Dixon

Carolyn’s story begins when her parents met in England during World War II. Carolyn’s mother, Elizabeth Leatherwood, was an army nurse. Her father, Colonel Robert Good was a pilot of a B-17 bomber (Flying Fortress). He soon became commander of a squadron of B-17 bombers. He flew many combat missions over Europe including one in support of the invasion on D-day, 6 June 1944. The role of a B-17 flight crew is well depicted in the movie “Memphis Belle”. The pilot of the real Memphis Belle was a friend of Col. Good. Among Carolyn’s treasured possessions is a book of letters written by her parents during World War II.

Martha Carolyn Good was born shortly after the war on April 11, 1946 in Springfield, Illinois. She was raised a Christian. Because she was small as a baby, she acquired the nickname “Skeeter” (from mosquito). This was soon shortened to “Skee”. To this day, many friends and relatives still know her as “Skee”. Her brother Robert “Butch” Good was born in Aug 3, 1948.

Her father remained in the Air Force, so Carolyn moved many times during her childhood. She lived in Japan at the age of seven. Mrs. Fishfader, her third grade teacher in Japan had a very good influence. She convinced Carolyn that she was smart and capable of good school work.

Her father participated in the Korean War. In 1954 Col. Good died of a brain tumor caused by high altitude flying.

Afterwards the family settled in Miami Springs, Florida and Elizabeth worked as a nurse at Jackson Memorial Hospital. Carolyn attended school in Florida. She received a bicycle for Christmas when she was nine. She named it “Liberty” and painted the name on the chain guard with red nail polish. She roamed all over Miami Springs, Medly and Hialeah on her bike. She loved the freedom of travel it gave her. Her best friends were Polly, Marta and Nancydee.

She also liked to walk. In high school it was uncool to ride one's bike to school. Usually Carolyn would take the school bus, but could easily walk the five miles home.

In Miami Springs, the Good family owned a boxer dog named Joto which means “good” in Japanese. This was the beginning of Carolyn’s lifelong love of dogs. One of Carolyn’s chores was picking up rotten mangos that fell from the two mango trees in the back yard.

School was fun for Carolyn. She liked all her subjects, especially spelling. In sixth grade she won the school spelling bee and went to the county competition. It was in a fancy hotel with an elegant lunch. She went again in 7th and 8th grade. She also enjoyed singing in the school chorus in Junior High and High School.

Carolyn’s mother taught her that it was important to make a contribution to society. and advised her "To thine own self be true." Carolyn never forgot these wise words.

As a child, Carolyn read a great deal. Car racing and teenage romance books were her favorites. Some of the books that influenced her as a teenager were Peace with God, by Billy Graham, and The Prophet, by Khalil Gibran, and Angel Unaware, by Dale Evans Rogers about their Down Syndrome baby. One book, that influenced Carolyn very much was The Listener, by Taylor Caldwell. She read it in the summer of 1963. As a teenager, Carolyn was active in Youth for Christ.

Carolyn spent summers with her Leatherwood grandparents on the family farm located on Deep Creek in Bryson City, NC, near The Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Her grandmother provided a special room in the basement. Carolyn thought the room was “really cool”. She grew to love the mountains. She especially liked to walk to Big Rock in the Smokey Mountains Park. In Bryson City, she walked all over. There was a secret short cut on the right side of the road from the house into town, that led to the top of Leatherwood Hill.

Carolyn earned 50 cents per hour baby-sitting. She liked to supervise children and especially enjoyed taking care of a baby. When she was 15, Carolyn took a summer job as a nurse’s aid at Jackson Memorial Hospital. She enjoyed the work. She attended Hialeah High School in Miami Springs for two years and made many good friends there.

In 1962 Carolyn’s mother moved the family to Dallas TX and took a job as Head Nurse at Parkman Hospital. (She was on duty when President Kennedy was shot in November 1963.) Carolyn completed her senior year at Thomas Jefferson High School in Dallas and graduated. Nevertheless she still considered Hialeah to be her “real” high school. After graduation she went back to Miami Springs and spent the summer visiting her old friends there.

After graduation, Carolyn attended Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN. During college years, Carolyn was active in a college youth group of a Methodist Church near Vanderbilt. She was interested in preparing for some sort of church work, but her advisor discouraged that idea and steered her toward Psychology. A logic class got her interested in computer programming.

In June 1967, Carolyn graduated from Vanderbilt with a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in Psychology. In 1968 her boyfriend, Allen Johnson, entered the University of Maryland to study toward a Ph.D. in physics. Carolyn followed him to the Washington area and applied for IBM's programmer training based in Gaithersburg. There were not yet degree programs in computer science, so IBM would hire anyone with a degree in any field who could pass their aptitude test. Carolyn considered pursuit of this job to be one of her most assertive adventures.

Carolyn and Allen Johnson were married on June 16, 1968. In January 1970, they purchased a house at 4706 Richmarr Place in Alexandria, Virginia. She called it “The Orange House”. She disliked her first name, Martha, so when she got married, she dropped that name for good.

Carolyn made many good friends amoung the neighbors. The people who lived on Richmarr Place organized a fourth of July celebration every year. Carolyn continued to attend for many years after she had moved away.

A son, Andrew Clark Johnson, was born January 21, 1972, but the marrige ended in divorce. The Orange House was sold and Carolyn and Andy moved into an apartment in Southern Towers in Arlington.

During this period, Carolyn became interested in political philosophy and read all of Ayn Rand’s books. She became a conservative who believed in limited government by the people and for the people. She also believed in a unique personal relationship with God for each person.

In 1977 Carolyn decided that she liked nursing better than writing computer programs, so she began to study at Northern Virginia Community College. She graduated Magna Cum Laude with an Associate in Applied Science Degree concentrating in Nursing in June 1978. She went to work at Columbia Hospital for Women, taking care of women awaiting childbirth.

In the summer of 1978, Carolyn traveled to Scandinavia with her mother. The ancestors of Carolyn;s father, Robert Good, came from Norway. They were able to visit some relatives in Norway.

I met Carolyn in August 1979 in an adult education class. I was a computer scientist working at the Naval Research Lab at the time. One evening while walking along the C & O canal in Georgetown, I asked Carolyn to marry me. We were married December first, 1979. We rode the train to New York City for our honeymoon. We took in several Broadway shows. The next month, January 1980, we moved into a house at 17 Arthur Drive East, Fort Washington Maryland.

Our daughter Bethany Joy Dixon was born by natural childbirth at home on December 3, 1982. Carolyn said is was a ”most treasured experience.” After the birth, Carolyn continued to work at Columbia Hospital.

Carolyn loved the Fourth of July celebration. Calista Downey's annual 4th of July picnic on Richmarr Place (where the orange house was located) has been a long tradition that we've often attended. Nearly every year, our family would go the mall in Washington (usually on the subway) to watch the fireworks. A few years, we drove out I-66 to a town called “The Plains” and enjoyed the fireworks there. They also had an airshow, horse races, and other family events.

We taught Bethany to read at home before she started school. Bethany encountered difficulties during her first year in public school. We decided to send her to Beddow, a private Montisorri school. She continued at Beddow through the 8th grade.

When Bethany was nearly finished with 8th grade, Carolyn began to search for the best high school for Bethany. The choice was Chantilly High School. In July 1996 the family moved to 13512 Tabscott in Chantilly, Virginia (within walking distance of the school). Soon after moving, Carolyn transferred to Fairfax Hospital from Columbia. She worked in the high risk pregnancy ward.

Carolyn loved celebrating Christmas. She never forgot that Christmas is first of all about the birth of Jesus into the world. Her collection of Christmas tree ornaments was perhaps her most valued possession. Every December she spent many hours carefully decorating the tree. Carolyn also liked to make quilts. Some of her close friends were fellow quilters. She made special personalized quilts as gifts for nearly every relative and many friends. It was a labor of love.

In 1997 Andy graduated from Virginia Tech with a Masters degree in Civil Engineering. Andy then flew to Japan and got a job teaching English at a Japanese university in Kyoto.

Bethany graduated from Chantilly High School in 2000. She then entered York University in Toronto, Canada to study Theater Arts. A strike at the University spoiled Bethany’s first year of college. She returned to Chantilly and began to work at Tower Records.

In 2000 Andy married a pretty Japanese girl named Yumiko. Carolyn and I flew to Kyoto, Japan to attend the wedding. It was a traditional Shinto ceremony. The reception was energized by an Elvis impresonator that Andy hired.

One of Carolyn’s patients was Kathryn Klanderman. Carolyn mentioned that we were looking for a new church to attend. Katherine recommended Chantilly Presbyterian Church. At that time the church was meeting in Franklin Middle School. Carolyn and I attended services and became members. (The church later moved into a new building in South Riding and changed its name to Grace Fellowship Church.)

One of Carolyn’s favorite Bible quotations was "Whoever would save his life shall lose it, and whoever would lose his life for my sake shall find it." from the gospel according to Matthew This means life is best when one is involved in a purpose greater than self, sharing God's love with others

In 2001 Carolyn noticed fatigue and chest tightness and she was no longer able to work as a nurse. Doctors gave her a series of tests, ruling out one disease after another. A year later, she was finally diagnosed with amyloidosis. This is a rare disease caused by abnormal cells in the bone marrow that produce excessive amounts of a light chain protein. This protein diffuses into various organs of the body and hardens into amyloid deposits. These deposits interfere with normal functioning of the organs causing a variety of symptoms. The disease is considered a form of cancer and is very difficult to diagnose. The cause of amyloidosis is unknown. It is not contagious. It is fatal in about 60% of cases. Carolyn became active in the Amyloid Support Network.

Carolyn and I traveled to Boston to be evaluated by a group of doctors at Boston University who specialized in amyloidosis. After we returned to Virginia, Carolyn was treated with high dose chemotherapy with stem cell rescue.

Although Carolyn could no longer work as a nurse, she continued to be helpful to people as a volunteer for Capitol Hospice. She was also responsible for the Church Prayer Chain.

Carolyn loved gardening. She enjoyed cutting the grass until she injured her knee in 1998. She made a compost pile and used it to plant flowers like impatiens, marigolds, sunflowers, day lilies, portulacas and white flowered liriope. and was very sad when she became too sick to continue gardening. She was delighed one Saturday when friends from the church came to our house and reorganized the garden for her.

The first chemotherapy session stopped the production of amyloid, but after a time blood levels of the unwanted protein began to creep upward. Carolyn was given a second chemotherapy treatment and the amyloid production slowed again.

William, the son of our old friends, the Beyer family, became involved with drugs and was sent to prison. Carolyn did what she could to help by writing letters to William. In 2004 we visited William in jail in the southern part of Virginia. After the visit, we went to Virginia Beach for the 4th of July celebration. We saw fireworks out over the ocean. Carolyn said that she would definitely like to do the beach fireworks again!

Carolyn became interested in Bridge because it was something she could do while sitting down. She joined the Greenbrier Bridge Players and made many good friends there.

In January 2006, Carolyn, Bethany and I flew to Japan to visit Andy, his wife Yumiko and their new baby, Ren. After the trip, in February, Carolyn’s heart began to beat very fast and would not slow down. This was caused by the amyloid which made her heart too stiff. In the hospital Carolyn was fitted with a pacemaker.

In the summer, Carolyn took on the responsibility of secretary of a church group called Solomon’s Fellowship. In the fall Carolyn began low dose chemotherapy. But she continued to grow weaker.

In early January 2007, Carolyn grew weaker still. Her doctor advised her to check into the hospital. As I was driving her to the hospital, we both realized that this might be the last trip so we said goodbye to each other. In the hospital doctors discovered that amyloid deposits had seriously weakened her heart, liver, and kidneys. Carolyn passed away on Saturday about 5 pm. At her bedside during her last moments were myself, Pastor Al and several friends from church. We said prayers and sang.

Carolyn donated her body to Georgetown Medical School.

Throughout her illness, Carolyn’s faith in the goodness of god never wavered. She remained cheerful in the face of the pain, discomfort and frustrations caused by her illness. She continued to be of service to others as long as she possibly could.

A memorial service was held on Saturday, 27 January 2007 at Grace Fellowship Church in South Riding, Virginia. The speakers included Pastor Al, Lilia Oberman and Mary Fellman. An overflow crowd of Carolyn’s friends and relatives filled the church.

She is survived by her husband John Dixon; her children Andrew C. Johnson (Yumiko), of Sapporo, Japan, and Bethany Joy Dixon; her brother Robert O. Good (Janis) of Dallas Texas; her cousin Sara Ousey (Steve) of Plano, Texas; her aunt Helen Cody, and her cousin Mary Gibson, both of Rocky Mount, North Carolina; her sister-in-law Ann Dixon of Farmington, Michigan; her stepchildren Bruce (Janet) Dixon, Katherine (David) Dixon-Peugh, and Quentin (Ewe Leng) Dixon- Lim; and her grandchildren Benjamin Dixon, Quinlin Dixon-Lim, and Juren Taizou Johnson.