George Hall Dixon

Dixon, George Hall 92, died unexpectedly at home on June 28, 2013. He was the husband of the late Marjorie Freeman Dixon. George was born in Rochester, NY, to George Hall Dixon and Frances Wheeler Dixon. He was an Eagle Scout at 16, and only a few years later served as a Lieutenant in the US Army commanding a segregated company in the Battle of the Bulge. He received his MBA from the Harvard Business School on the GI Bill in 1947. He proposed marriage to Peggy Freeman during a moonlight sail in a Herreshoff 12-1/2 in Narragansett Bay and they were married for almost 63 years, until her death in 2011. George worked as an economist and banker in Boston, Providence, New York City, and finally for thirty happy years in Minneapolis. He was CEO and Chairman of First Bank System, the company now known as US Bank Corp. and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Carleton College in Minnesota, as well as being active in the Boy Scouts, the Minneapolis Orchestra, United Way, and many other Twin-cities charities. He also served as Deputy Secretary of the Treasury during the Ford Administration. With his wife, Peggy, George led an adventurous life. He traveled to every continent and set foot on both the North and South Poles. He played competitive tennis into his eighties, and loved to hike, canoe, and sail. In his retirement he had a boat built in England which he sailed across the Atlantic with Peggy and friends. In his late seventies he backpacked into the Beartooth range of Montana with his boys and son-in-law and his fly-rod, and camped under the stars. A man of diverse interests, his reading ranged from Economics and politics, to Cosmology, Particle Physics and Astronomy, and to Polar exploration. At the time of his death he was reading Dickens's Great Expectations and Hyperspace by Michio Kaku. He kept bees for last 60 years. He embraced new technology, communicating with his grandchildren via email, and had even been caught texting at the dinner table. He is survived by a daughter, twin sons and their spouses: Candis Dixon and Sam Blando, Andy Dixon and Sally Cassells, and Jed Dixon and Helen Hardy. George rarely talked about himself or took credit for his accomplishments, but often boasted with great affection and happiness about his grandchildren: Will, Nathaniel, Alex, Tom, and May Dixon, and Nico Blando. He leaves his sister, Nancy Ammann and her family in Switzerland, his beloved friend, Marianne Bamberger in Munich, and his caregiver and friend Paula Ginalski. Services will be private. Brewitt Funeral Home, Exeter, NH is assisting the family with the arrangements. In lieu of flowers, gifts can be made to Carleton College, 1 N. College St, Northfield, MN 55057; the Minnesota Orchestra, 1111 Nicollet Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55403; Planned Parenthood, 111 Point St., Providence, RI 02940; or to the Marjorie F Dixon Fund at the Herreshoff Marine Museum,1 Burnside St., Bristol, RI 02809. To share remembrances or consolation: www.brewittfuneralhome.com
This obituary was originally published in the Star Tribune.