A funeral Mass for Brother Richard J. Dix, SM, was celebrated Feb. 11 at Assumption Chapel-St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas. Brother Dix died on Feb. 2 at the age of 92 with 75 years of vowed life.
Richard Joseph Dix was born on March 2, 1932, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He was one of six children in the family of Martin and Helen (Kitowski) Dix. He attended Don Bosco High School, where he first encountered the Marianists.
As a sophomore, Richard was invited by Marianist Father Glennon McCarty to consider religious life. He and four classmates then entered the postulancy in 1947 at Maryhurst in Kirkwood. He began novitiate a year later at Marynook in Galesville, Wisconsin, and professed first vows there on Aug. 15, 1949. He earned a bachelor’s degree in biology in 1952 from St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, and in 1963 he completed a master’s degree in biology from the University of Notre Dame.
Bother Dix spent his first 25 years of ministry in education as an elementary and high school teacher at schools in Texas and Missouri, eventually transitioning to administration at Nolan Catholic High School in Fort Worth. He later continued in that capacity at St. Mary’s High School and St. John Vianney High School, both in St. Louis.
From secondary education, Brother Dix was called to provincial administration, beginning in 1976 as the provincial assistant for temporalities for 20 years, spanning over three decades up to 2007. He was elected a delegate to the Marianists’ international General Chapter six times over 35 years.
In 1985, Brother Dix returned to his love of educational work, teaching biology at St. Mary’s University and then assuming the position of registrar for the next decade while serving as the director of Marianist Residence Community of over 45 brothers.
He is preceded in death by his parents and four of his siblings and survived by his sister, Ann Haderer. Burial was in the Marianist Cemetery in San Antonio.
