THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 9, 1995 TAG: 9507090226
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B7 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JENNIFER CHRISTMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: MANTEO LENGTH: Medium: 64 lines
Fifty-one years to the day after her husband, John, now deceased, returned home from military service, two strangers gave Frances Dixon a piece of his past Saturday.
Traveling more than 100 miles from their Portsmouth home, Dallas and Donna Belcher presented Dixon with an artifact they stumbled upon while renovating their home - John Dixon's long-lost Army dog tags.
``I'm so flabbergasted - it's eerie,'' Dixon said. ``Who would think 51 years later that the tags would be returned to me on the same day he was discharged from the service?
``It just makes my skin crawl.''
On Sunday, June 11, Dallas Belcher noticed the two tarnished metal tags on a broken chain while working on his home - the home the Dixons occupied in 1944. The tags gave no clue except: Dixon, John T. 333850816 T44A.
``There were some steps in the way and some concrete in the way,'' he said. ``I went and got me a maul and commenced to getting that stuff out of my way. And I saw something shiny down in the dirt under the concrete glittering up at me.''
That something shiny was a memory that crossed Dixon's mind earlier that month around the June 6 anniversary of D-Day.
``I kept seeing pictures of D-Day, and wondered what in the world could have happened to the tags,'' Dixon said. ``All I could remember was my daughter playing with them. They dangled, and they were shiny. She probably lost them out in the yard.''
Donna Belcher wrote a letter to the editor of Currents, a community news section for Portsmouth readers of The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star, to announce the discovery of the tags. The June 14 letter's headline read: ``Where's John Dixon?''
A neighbor with the answer to that question called Donna Belcher, who in turn called Frances Dixon.
``It was just incredible - Donna and I were both standing on the phone crying. It was just so remarkable for both of us,'' Dixon said. ``After thinking about these tags, I couldn't believe what I was hearing.''
The three strangers sounded like old friends Saturday as they talked in Dixon's flowery living room. They gabbed about their Portsmouth neighborhood, friends and family, discovering they had more in common than John's dog tags. Dallas Belcher and Dixon's daughter, Ann, attended Deep Creek High School together.
Dallas Belcher said he and Donna worked hard to find the tags' owner because of their sentimental value.
``It's almost like a crumb that you would give to a starving man,'' Dallas Belcher said. ``It means a whole lot to someone who does not have it. It's something very small that we felt that we could do, and we were pretty sure that someone would appreciate it.''
And Dixon does appreciate having another special trinket to place in a large family album.
``This will go to grandchildren, great-grandchildren and their children,'' Dixon said, fidgeting with the tags. ``We are all real family-oriented and family-minded, so this is very special.
``It just means the world to us.'' by CNB