Lucian Weller Dixon

Lucian Weller Dixon

Ridgeland - Lucian Weller Dixon's extraordinary life ended at Hospice Ministries in Ridgeland, Mississippi on July 9, 2021 following a crippling heart attack.

He was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana on September 25, 1943, where his father was working as a chemical engineer. His family relocated to the New York suburbs in 1946, and Lucian grew up in New Canaan, Connecticut, the second of five children. A Life scout, strong swimmer, and skilled marksman, he was also a voracious reader often hiding more interesting books in his lap during school classes, much to the consternation of his teachers. But it was German class at Hebron Academy in Hebron, Maine that ignited his life-long passion for languages. At the University of Pennsylvania, he earned a fellowship to spend his junior year at the Freie Universität Berlin. He graduated from Penn in 1965 with a B.A. in History and Asian Studies.

Lucian entered the Peace Corps in 1965 learning Malay-Indonesian to teach English in Malaysia, only to be deselected at the final stage of training because of his continuing objection to using US Military dictionaries for teaching English to civilians.

He immediately volunteered for the US Army and was accepted into the Defense Language School at the Presidio in Monterey, California where he completed training in Standard Chinese (Mandarin) and a second Chinese dialect. In 1967, as opposition to the war in Vietnam grew, Lucian successfully petitioned for an honorable discharge as a conscientious objector. His father joined him on November 15, 1969 in the Moratorium to End the War, the largest anti-war march in Washington.

By his mid-twenties Lucian was fluent in German and Chinese, and proficient in Russian, Arabic, Malay-Indonesian, Spanish, French, Italian and Latin. Then another form of communication captured his interest: film and sound. Lucian enrolled at the Maryland Institute of Fine Arts in Baltimore in the Master of Fine Arts program in film and photography, supporting himself by working for the Enoch Pratt Free Library Community Action Program as a librarian and editor of a monthly magazine of inner-city poetry. While there, Lucian and Sam Cornish, who later became the first poet-laureate for Boston, edited and published selections from the magazine in Chicory - Young Voices from the Black Ghetto (Association Press, 1969.)

His fine arts studies led to positions in Baltimore with Westinghouse Broadcasting, Maryland Center for Public Broadcasting, and Monumental Films. After relocating to Santa Cruz, California, Lucian worked on the 1976 Academy Award winning short live-action film 'In the Regions of Ice', Reel Life Films' documentary of treasure hunter Mel Fisher, 'The Treasure of the Atocha,' continued language studies to maintain proficiencies in Russian, Italian and Chinese, lectured on film history, and explored screenwriting.

In 1980, Lucian moved to Stuttgart, Germany where he lived until 1995. He worked in film and sound production with Süddeutscher Rundfunk as a location sound recordist for news and documentary films for South German Broadcasting Television - 1st Channel, traveling throughout Europe, Asian, Africa and the Middle East. The team's many films included a portrait of Lewis Carroll; a nature documentary of the Kenyan Masai Mara Game Park; the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989; the German military's first peacetime training and mission since WWII; and a portrait of Israeli and Palestinian citizens after Iraqi missile attacks during the Gulf War. He doubled as the crew translator since he could always find at least one common language with whomever he spoke.

Lucian returned to California in 1997 for more documentary work, including location sound recording for The Making of Godzilla European release. The emergence of personal computers presented Lucian with a third form of communication he was determined to master: computer languages and programs. He worked on the archives of Life photographer J.R. Eyerman, and was Operations Coordinator at the Silicon Valley World Internet Center in Palo Alto, CA. After moving to Jackson, MS in 2000, Lucian delved deeper into screenwriting, continued freelance photography, web design and database management, was an active volunteer with Crossroads Film Festival, an enthusiastic supporter of the CelticFest, and during the years 2015-2020, served as the webmaster for the Facebook site, 'The Political Carnival,' a progressive, anti-Trump news aggregator.

He was studying Portuguese and Persian in the last months of his life.

Lucian was predeceased by his parents, Paul R. B. Dixon and Louisa Ogden Dixon of Natchez and a younger brother, Edwin B. Dixon, of New Canaan, Connecticut. He is survived by his older brother Peter O. Dixon (Priscilla Harrison) of Cape Elizabeth, Maine, and two younger sisters, Mary O. Dixon (Scott Bagley) of Aptos, California, and Louisa O. Dixon (Jerry Johnson) of Oxford, Mississippi; eight nieces and nephews, and ten great-nieces and great-nephews.

Lucian donated his collection of camera and photography equipment to Jackson State University Department of Art and Theater. In keeping with his wishes, members of his family will spread his ashes on the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and along the Natchez Trace which Lucian often visited for solace and contemplation.

Our deepest appreciation goes to the all the staff of the University of Mississippi Medical Center and the kind and caring nurses and caretakers of Hospice Ministries of Ridgeland. Lucian, and his family, greatly appreciated the advice and counsel of Dr. Keith Mansel.