A Son’s Reflections Of His Mother’s Stories
9/20/2025 I Timothy 4:6-10 Psalm 91
I was going to write a book on some of the stories my mother told me about her life, but since I probably will not get around to doing it, I want to share some of the stories with you. Her mother had 14 children, one of which died as an infant. They were very poor, but their mother was a hard worker. There were at least five different fathers among the 14.
But her mother had no problem with this because Jesus had told the woman at the well, that she had had five husbands, and the one she was now with was not her husband. Somehow the message of the Samaritan woman became you can have up to five husbands and possibly six and still be okay.
On picking Cotton
The time to pick cotton came around in August. The Ga sun is super hot in August. The day began at around 5:30 am with her mother baking biscuits and frying fatback. These would all be loaded up into a bag for lunch. Clarien was about 11 and she and her siblings were up at 6. They would climb on the back of a long flat bed truck that went throughout the neighborhood gathering people to be driven outside the city to the Cotton fields.
Work would begin at 7, Once at the field, Clarien searched for two things. First where was the shade tree, and second were there any clouds in the sky that might give a hint of rain. She knew they would be there in the fields until about five o’oclock. It was a joy to see the sun start heading down the other side of the sky.
Some cotton owners would have a water stations with water and watermelons on it for those needing a break. Picking cotton was hard work. All the money they earned during the week went to their mother. But Saturday was a ½ day. Each child had their own bag, and any cotton picked on Saturday, once it was weighed, the child got to keep that money. When they finished a whole field, the white folks would have a big fish fry prepared for them with watermelons and fruit. The white folks would all be peering out the windows watching them eat, but never would join in with them.
On Going To School
Picking cotton and the first two weeks of school coincided with each other and Clarien’s mother, needed them to work in the cotton fields so school was placed on the backburner. Those two weeks, Clarien was ashamed to ride on the flatbed trucks and tried to hide behind the other adults. She knew the other kids who were on their way to school would laugh at them. They were often the butt of jokes with their raggedy clothes. Clarien and her brothers and sisters became comedians as a way to get the other kids to like them. Word got out, it was okay to be with the Mobley kids, because they had could be very funny.
Clarien was very smart in school, and it was not long before she caught up with her brothers Leo and Bobby. They went to a one room school house in primer school. One day Leo and Bobby, didn’t come to school and the teacher asked Clarien why they weren’t at school. Clarien refused to say anything, the teacher demanded an answer and threatened her with a paddling. She still refused to answer. She took the paddling and went back to her seat. She didn’t want to tell the teacher, her brothers were missing that day because they didn’t have any shoes to wear to school.
Clarien was in the 11th grade when she found out she was pregnant. Her mother told her that she and James Smith were going to get married. She was taking them both down to the Courthouse. On the day they were to go, James didn’t show up. When Clarien saw him later, she asked why he didn’t come. He said he figured out, the baby was not his, and he now had another girlfriend. Clarien was devastated. When you come into Dublin from the east, you cross a double bridge and underneath it runs the mighty the Oconee River. It used to flood annually during the spring, when the dam up north was opened up. It was very near Clarien’s house and often the river surrounded the house when it overflowed its banks.
Clarien was so depressed after James’ rejection of her and her unborn child, that she went to the Oconnee River Bridge with the intent to end her life and that of her unborn child. As she stared over the edge of the bridge, and looked at the rushing river below, she was ready to make the jump. Then all of a sudden, she stopped and walked back home.
On Easter Sunday
Clarien had an aunt, named Aunt Lil. She was Clarien’s mother sister and she lived in North Carolina. She always tried to help her sister out with all those children. Like clockwork, each week before Easter, all the kids were looking for the Special Delivery lady from the post office to come down Columbia Street. Easter was a big event in the neighborhood. There was always the Easter program that Sunday afternoon. All the kids from the neighborhood would line up and they would go up and down the street with their Easter clothes like a parade. People came out on the front porch to watch them parade by. The march would end at Jackson Chapel CME church with the easter program where the kids would recite their speeches.
Aunt Lil would faithfully send the girls dresses and the boys suits for Easter along with pieces of candy. They all thought Aunt Lil must be rich. There was one Easter that Clarien never forgot. She had received the prettiest dress with flowers on it that you had ever seen. When she went outside in her new dress, one of the worst behaved kids in the neighborhood was hiding behind a tree.
Out of plain meanness, he took a rock, threw it and hit Clarien with it and took off laughing. The rock struck her in the head. Blood dripped down on her beautiful new dress. All she could do was cry. She felt worse about the dress, than she did about the wound.
On Jim Crow and Segregation
Clarien was in terrible pain from a tooth and the walk to the dentist seemed terribly long. She sat in the dentist waiting room in agony. When she finally got the chance to go to the window, she started to tell the receptionist what was wrong. The receptionist stopped her mid-sentence and told her, “this window is only for whites, you will have to go around the hall in the back and speak to someone at the colored window.” Clarien felt so insulted, she turned around went out the door and took her pain home with her.
The Civil Rights movement came to Dublin, Ga. Somebody decided to boycott all the downtown stores. The only problem was, Clarien’s kids school clothes were on layaway at Belks, and the boycott was called for, the day before she got paid at work. She was not going to have her children not looking nice on the first day of school. She went to the store and got her kids their school clothes. Someone was watching who went into the stores, because the following day, a large brick was thrown through Clarien’s living room window with a note attached.
On Marriage
Clarien said one of the happiest days of her life was the day she got married. She and John Dixon were married for nearly 50 years, but you would not have thought that possible if you had seen the first twenty of it. Thanks to the devastating impact of alcohol in their marriage, they had numerous arguments, physical fights and brief separations. They even found themselves sitting in a lawyer’s waiting area while each of their lawyers supposedly went talked to each other.
Her husband got up to go the bathroom, and on the way, he looked in a door window. He saw their lawyers laughing and talking with each other. He went and said to Clarien, “those lawyers are in the there laughing and talking with each other, they don’t care anything about us. They just want our money. Do you want to just forget about this divorce thing and go home?” She agreed and they went home for another try.
Clarien knew what really saved their marriage was each of their willingness to surrender their lives to Jesus Christ. They needed a supernatural power to help them overcome all the hurt and pain they had inflicted on each other and to give them a hope that their marriage and family could be different. They found it and fell just six months shy of celebrating their 50th anniversary due to her husband’s death. Their last days together were among their best days.
On Knowing Jesus
Clarien had a longing in her heart for God, long before she knew who God was she was a church goer. Jackson Chapel AME church only had church 1rst and 3rd Sunday because of the traveling preacher. She made sure her boys went to Sunday School. Not matter what fight may have occurred on Friday or Saturday night in the home, early on Sunday morning at the crack of dawn it was Black gospel music time. The stereo system would be blasting songs by, James Cleveland, Shirley Ceasar, The Five Blind Boys of Alabama and a host of other gospel groups. It was a waste of time to tell her to turn down the music so you could sleep a little longer.
God was doing something new in the family. First her mother, Louise got saved and made a dramatic turn around. Then her son Rick, gave his heart to the Lord. Slowly other family members gave their lives to Christ. Clarien gave her life to the Lord and allowed God to work in her. Her husband John shortly thereafter gave his life to Christ having noticed the change in his wife. Her other children made the choice to follow Christ. Revival had entered the Fowler family with members getting saved in Hornell, in Syracuse, and in New York City.
When Clarien fell in love with Jesus, she wanted the world to know what Jesus had done for her and would do for them. She became an evangelist going into the neighborhoods with others to talk about Jesus. She started supporting ministries beyond her church, especially ministries that involved feeding and helping children with medicine and surgeries.
She went and set up a ministry on the third Saturday of each month at Dublinaire nursing home. She had a worship service with ten to twenty residents at a time giving them the opportunity to give a testimony, lead a song, or give a prayer. She would read a passage of Scripture and expound on it for about five to ten minutes. They would then share snacks and fellowship with each other. She always gave people an invitation to give their lives to Christ. Many of the people made decisions to follow Christ during that 20 year ministry. They left the nursing home and into the arms of Jesus because Clarien took the time to rescue them.
On Death and Dying
She was sitting in the doctor’s office, when the doctor explained to her that she could no longer live by herself. This was a blow for an independent 87 year old woman who had still been driving the week before. He asked her if she had anywhere to go. She said she was thinking about going to be with her son Rick and his wife Toby in Cleveland. She later changed her mind but after talking with her three sons, Rick, Reggie, and Greg she agreed to go to Cleveland, on a 30 day trial basis. At the end of 30 days she agreed to stay a few more weeks.
With a sense of urgency, she told her son Rick, she wanted to go back to Ga. Everything in Cleveland was great, but she wanted to die in Ga. Just before the trip to Ga her health took a turn for the worse. And though there were signs things were getting better, things began to go down hill again. In less than a two- week periods, the options went from considering assisted living care in Dublin Ga, to coming back to Cleveland, to exploring home hospice. She entered hospice care on Friday. Rick became her caregiver being trained by Hospice on what to expect and how to dispense medicine. His mother had not eaten in weeks. Rick didn’t know if Clarien would be awake on Saturday morning when he got up, she was, on Sunday morning, she was, on Monday morning, she was. But then came Tuesday morning.
She and Rick, shared devotions that morning by him reading her several passages of Scripture, singing Come Thou Fount Of Every Blessing, listening to It Is Well With My Soul and I’m Going Up Yonder. Her son reached over and kissed her and told her what a wonderful mother she had been. Rick prayed that God would take her home soon because they both knew she was ready to meet the Lord.
Earlier that year, she had told a neighbor, I want to die in the same house my husband died in. Less than thirty minutes after the end of the devotions, she received her final wish and went home to be with the Lord, from the same house her husband died in. She left to be with the Lord on Tuesday a half hour after their final devotions together.
Clarien Dixon was ready to meet the Lord? My friend, what about you.
