Laura Eleanor Dixon

Laura E. Dixon

The Vigil Service for Laura E. Dixon, 81, was held Tuesday, March 3, 1992, at the Bader-Peet Mortuary Chapel with Rev. Patrick Shea officiating. The funeral liturgy will be at 10 a.m. Thursday, March 5, 1992, at St. Leo's Catholic Church in Lusk. Burial will follow in the Lusk Cemetery.

Dixon died Sunday, March 1, 1992, at the Niobrara County Memorial Nursing Home in Lusk. She was born Oct. 30, 1909, in Chicago, Ill., the daughter of Ludwig Louis and Anna R. Borucka Pelic.

Her family first homesteaded in Canada. Then they homesteaded in northern Niobrara County shortly after World War I, around 1919. They brought the first piano to the area in 1921. Her parents divorced in 1926 and her mother changed the family's name to Kolego.

Dixon graduated from Lusk High School in 1927. She attended Chadron College and graduated from the University of Wyoming in 1942 with a Bachelor of Science degree.

She married Wayne Rodgers on Nov. 19, 1932, at Bridgeport, Neb. They later divorced and she married Robert B. Dixon on Aug. 26, 1945, in Riverton. Robert died in December 1966.

Dixon taught school for many years starting in 1928. During World War II, she worked for the U.S. Government as a dehydrated food specialist.

She was a member of St. Leo's Catholic Church, a life member of the University of Wyoming Alumni, the Wyoming Retired Teachers' Association, a life member of the American Home Economics Association, the Wyoming Cowbelles, and was a past member of the Niobrara Republican Central Committee and the Lusk Business and Professional Women.

Besides her parents and her husband, she was preceded in death by one sister, Wanda Kolego, two brothers, Henry and Francis Kolego and one grandson, Walter W. Rodgers.

Survivors include two sons, Jess L. Rodgers of Casper and Douglas and William C. Rodgers of Golden, Colo.; three grandsons, one granddaughter and six great-grandchildren.

For those who wish, memorials to the Niobrara County Nursing Home or to St. Leo's Church will be appreciated by the family.

Bader-Peet Mortuary is in charge of arrangements.

The Lusk Herald
May 17, 1989
Former Teacher Loves Trivia

Laura Dixon loves to play trivia games at the Niobrara County Memorial Nursing Home. It is one of her hobbies now.

"I like anything that you learn from," she said.

Dixon was born in Chicago on Oct. 30, 1909. she came to Wyoming with her parents in 1918. Her parents homesteaded north of Lusk.

She attended school and graduated from the Lusk school system in 1928.

She is a former teacher of both high school and grade school. She taught at the Cow Creek Country School, which was close to her home and taught in the Riverton High School for one year. She has a bachelor of science degree in a distributed major, she said.

She has two sons by her first husband - Bill Rodgers of Denver and Jess Rodgers of Casper.

She met and married her second husband, Robert Dixon, at a dance in Lance Creek. He had a homestead near her parents. They were married in 1942. He helped her finish her schooling and encouraged her in her teaching.

Dixon said she loves to read and is a "TV-holic."

"I spend a lot of time reading," she said.

She said she will always have fond memories of teaching at the Cow Creek school, mentioning family names like Petersons who have been around the area for many years.

"People that went to school there have been friends to me even after they grew up," she said.

One of the signs of progression in the country school while she was teaching was the addition of indoor plumbing at the school, so the children and the teacher no longer had to go down the path.

Dixon is still a member of the Wyoming Cowbelles, although she does not get to attend as much as she would like to.

"I really enjoy it. I used to go to national conventions. My husband loved to go and would go along," she said.

She says everything at the nursing home is very nice. She enjoys having someone come to the home each Sunday for services.

"This is the cleanest hospital," she said. "Cleanliness to me is next to Godliness. The food is good, too.

"It's the best hospital in the state as far as I'm concerned, possibly in the country."

"The nurses are all good and the people are all nice. I have a lot of good friends here," she said.

Dixon entered the nursing home in September of 1983 after breaking a leg. She was taken to the doctor, where she was diagnosed as having Multiple Sclerosis and is now confined to a wheelchair.

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