DIXON, Ouida (Wilder)

Ouida Dixon, 103, of McAlester, died Sunday, Jan. 6, 2008, at a local nursing home. Private family services will be held. Arrangements are under the direction of Chaney-Harkins Funeral Home of McAlester. Born Sept. 28, 1904, in Haileyville, Indian Territory, she was the daughter of Oville and Clara (Freeman) Wilder. She was Valedictorian with Haileyville High School Class of 1922. She entered the Oklahoma College for Women of Chickasha to become a teacher. She taught school at Haileyville Public Schools. She married Vernil Dixon. She was an entrepreneur in every sense of the word. She went to LaRue Beauty School and helped young beauticians establish their own beauty shops all over the United States. She owned a grocery store in San Antonio, Texas, and an automotive garage in Seattle, Wash. While her husband was in a veterans hospital in California following World War II, she boarded and nursed other veterans who were not hospitalized. Survivors include two sisters, Juanita Davis, Yellville, Ark., and Wynonah Clifton and husband, David, of Scipio. She was preceded in death by her husband, Vernil Dixon; parents, Oville and Clara Wilder, and brothers, Horace, Harold and William.