Jane Vincenta Dixon

Jane Vincenta Dixon, 94, born on May 24, 1921 in Auburn, New York passed away June 12, 2015. She resided in Sherman Oaks, California at the time of her passing. Arrangements are under the direction of Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles, California.

Today we remember Jane, as we gather here as her family and friends. Jane was born in 1921 in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York. She was the eldest of four siblings born to Italian immigrant parents, Giovanni Cannizzo, and his wife Antoinette, who were both born in the small Sicilian fishing village of Scoglitti and whose families had already passed through Ellis Island to start a new life in America. The Cannizzos ultimately crossed the continent to settle in Los Angeles--where the climate was closer to the Mediterranean environment that they knew and missed--and it is here that Jane lived for the rest of her long life.

Together with her parents and sister Gilda and brothers Frank and John, Jane first lived in the Lincoln Heights section of Los Angeles, northeast of Downtown. It was a neighborhood filled with many other immigrant families, many of a similar Italian-Sicilian background as Jane's family. Tempered by the harsh reality of life during the Great Depression, the family was brought even closer together in 1935, with the sudden and tragic loss of Jane's father in a traffic accident, which left behind his widow and four children, varying in age from Jane at fourteen to the youngest son John, at age six. Although just a youngster herself, Jane had to help with the survival of her family through this terrible ordeal--she worked at the student store during high school to help supplement the modest income her mother earned as a seamstress. This undoubtedly helped her to develop into the smart, fiscally conservative, strong-willed, stubborn, and feisty lady that we all remember.
Despite sadness and difficulties--including the onset, duration, and aftermath of the Second World War--Jane and her family flourished in the years following her father's death. Upon graduating from high school, Jane began working at the Dixon Boiler Works factory, located next to Chinatown, not far from her Lincoln Heights neighborhood. Through the mentorship of Troy Dixon, the owner of the company, Jane honed her business acumen and quickly became proficient in overseeing all aspects of the company as its office manager. The mutual respect and friendship that had first formed between Troy and Jane ultimately led them to fall deeply in love, despite the difference in age of more than twenty years between them, and in 1956 they finally married.

Theirs was truly a loving partnership, and Jane and Troy shared much happiness together in their home in La Canada. However, their marriage was sadly destined to be much shorter than expected when Troy fell ill and died on New Year's Eve in 1958. The sorrow encapsulated within such a devastating event can only be imagined by those who have not experienced it, however Jane was granted a special gift when soon after the loss of her husband she discovered she was expecting a child.

In July of 1959, Jim was born and brought renewed sunshine and happiness into Jane's life. As everyone here already knows, Jim was Jane's greatest treasure. With the arrival of Jim, and help from her widowed mother, brothers and sister and their spouses and children, Jane's life was given a renewed purpose and meaning. Together with Jim and her mother Antoinette, Jane moved from La Canada to Sherman Oaks, where she focused the next eighteen years of her life on the important role of mother as she raised Jim.

When Jim started college in 1977, Jane returned to working full time and advanced to the position of purchasing agent for the educational division of McGraw Hill/Glencoe Publishers. She worked at Glencoe with her sister Gilda for over twenty years, retiring only after she was well past seventy years of age. Many of her colleagues attested to the wisdom and capability of Jane's working method at a time just on the cusp of the boom in technology and computers, which Jane never fancied or cared to learn to use. With her keen mind and a sharp pencil, Jane didn't even need a calculator--she never made mistakes.

For the remaining almost twenty years, Jane lived in her house in Sherman Oaks, playing bridge with friends at St. Cyril's Church, enjoying visits with her family and the traditional annual Cannizzo-Genovese family reunions, and spending as much time as she could with Jim and Claudine and their friends, many of whom became family members to her and are gathered here now to remember her. Today, all of us hold memories of how Jane impacted our lives and we are grateful for that gift.

Thank you all for coming to remember Jane.