Drusilla Elizabeth Tandy Nixon (July 15, 1899 – May 10, 1990) was a community activist and music educator in El Paso, Texas.

Background

The daughter of Maud Grant and John Clifford Tandy, she was born Drusilla Elizabeth Tandy in Toledo, Ohio in 1899.[1] She was educated at Waite High School where she graduated in June 1917 and later attended the University of Toledo.[2]

Career

After the University was forced to close due to the 1918 flu pandemic, she was hired by the American Missionary Association in Georgia and sent to Atlanta.[2] By January 1920, she was working as a shipping clerk in Toledo. In November 1920, she moved to Knoxville, Tennessee after marrying Webster Porter, a conservative newspaper owner.[2] Porter was against the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Knoxville.[3] After her divorce from her first husband, she returned to Toledo.[3]

She served in a number of positions at Tuskegee Institute, including assistant to Emmett Jay Scott.[3] She had moved to El Paso for eighteen months in October 1929 to help deal with an asthma condition;[4] Lawrence Nixon, later her third husband, was her physician during this time.[5] In 1935, she organized the Black Girl Reserves at the YWCA there.[6] She was a member of the Phillis Wheatley Club in El Paso for forty years, serving as club president at one time.

In 1945, she became a charter member of the Southern Conference for Human Welfare (SCHW) in El Paso.[7][8] She gave talks at SCHW including one given on January 9, 1947 called "Building a Better South."[9] The El Paso chapter of the SCHW was smeared by the El Paso Herald-Post in a 1948 article that claimed the group was involved with Communism.[10] This caused the YWCA to break ties with the El Paso SCHW and later that year, the SCHW disbanded by November of 1948.[11]

Nixon continued to represent the YWCA.[12] She was the first black woman to serve on the board for the El Paso YWCA.[13] She was also vice-president of the Church Women United, the choir director for St. James Myrtle United Methodist Church,[12] co-chair of the El Paso Parks and Recreation Department, and a member of the El Paso Mental Health Board and the El Paso Council of Churches. Nixon was also involved in the passage of the El Paso anti-discrimination ordinance in 1962.[12]

In 1978, she was named Woman of the Year by the Phillis Wheatley Club of El Paso.[14]

Private life and death

She was married three times: first to Webster L. Porter, an attorney and newspaper owner, in 1920; the couple divorced two years later after she gave birth to a daughter. She next married Ernest Ten Eyck Attwell in 1927;[3] the couple, already separated, divorced in November 1935. She married Dr. Lawrence Aaron Nixon a few days later.[7]

Nixon enjoyed teaching music to children; her students included congresswoman Barbara Lee.[7]

She died in Albuquerque, New Mexico on May 10, 1990, at the age of 90.[7][15]

Legacy

Nixon was posthumously named an honorary member of the El Paso Women's Hall of Fame.[8]

References

  1. ↑ Guzman 2017, p. 82.
  2. 1 2 3 Guzman 2017, p. 83.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Guzman 2017, p. 84.
  4. ↑ Davis, Mary Margaret (11 May 1990). "Widow of El Paso Civil Rights Pioneer Dies in Albuquerque". El Paso Times. Retrieved 18 May 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. ↑ Guzman 2017, p. 85.
  6. ↑ Guzman 2017, p. 86.
  7. 1 2 3 4 "Nixon, Drusilla Elizabeth Tandy". Handbook of Texas Online. Texas State Historical Association.
  8. 1 2 Guzman, Will (2015). Civil Rights in the Texas Borderlands: Dr. Lawrence A. Nixon and Black Activism. University of Illinois Press. p. 171. ISBN 978-0252096884.
  9. ↑ Guzman 2017, p. 87.
  10. ↑ Guzman 2017, p. 88.
  11. ↑ Guzman 2017, p. 88-89.
  12. 1 2 3 Guzman 2017, p. 89.
  13. ↑ "Nixon Helped Bring Change". El Paso Times. 24 February 2009. p. 1D. Retrieved 18 May 2019 – via Newspapers.com. and "Nixon". El Paso Times. 24 February 2009. p. 2D. Retrieved 18 May 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  14. ↑ "Phillis Wheatley Club Names Woman of the Year". El Paso Times. 4 June 1978. Retrieved 18 May 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  15. ↑ Guzman 2017, p. 91.

Sources

  • Guzman, Will (Spring 2017). "Toledo's Tandy: Drusilla E. Nixon's Love of Life and Service to Others". Northwest Ohio History. 84 (2): 82–96.
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