Well known berry farmer Bob Dix dies at age 84

Troutdale man was ‘everybody’s first boss’

By Sharon Nesbit

The Gresham Outlook, Aug 25, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009

Contributed photo

Bob Dix with his children Robin and Julie circa late 1950s.

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Troutdale berry farmer Bob Dix, who is remembered by scores of children who worked and grew up in his berry fields, died Friday, Aug. 21, at his Boring home of esophageal cancer. He was 84.

His funeral service will be at 1 p.m. Friday, Aug. 28, at Smith Memorial Presbyterian Church, 2420 Fairview Ave., where he and his wife, Louise, were members of the Mariners. Viewing is from noon to 7 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 26, at Gresham Memorial Chapel, 257 S.E. Roberts Ave.

“Bob Dix was everybody’s first boss,” remembered Mary Bryson of Springdale, who worked in the Dix berry fields when she was growing up.

Neil Handy of Troutdale, who recently turned 62 and collected his first Social Security check, started working for Dix as a fifth-grader. Handy and his brothers worked weekends after school, then summers picking and in late day helped Dix load crates to take to the cannery.

It was how you learned your work ethic, Handy said.

“You were a kid and you had your own money and you learned to save some.”

Nancy Callister Buley, who now works for J. Frank Schmidt & Son nursery, worked in the Dix fields and was a friend of their daughter, Julie.

“He was always pretty calm but there was a special signal that let us know how things were going,” Buley remembers. “Bob always had some quarters in his pocket, and if they were really clinking together loud, we knew that he was worried about something (the rain, or sunscald on the raspberries, or the price of berries at the cannery, or a broken down truck). The louder the jingling change, the more we knew we’d better pay attention to our work and be model berry pickers.”

And at the end of the season, the Dixes took their workers on a blowout party at Blue Lake Park where “we all went crazy,” Handy remembered. “He knew how to work hard, but when it was time to have fun, he knew how to do that, too.”

Dix, smiling and soft-spoken, was a child of the Depression. Born Nov. 3, 1924, in Blunt, S.D., to William “Ben” and Luella (Snell) Dix, the family came west seeking a healthier climate for his mother, who had asthma.

They loaded a 1929 Buick with all their possessions, headed for “nice and cool” Oregon, but to do so, they had to drive the Columbia River Highway through the gorge.

“Unbelievable,” he remembered in an interview. “The road was enough to scare us to death.”

The family spent its first winter living in a shed in Mill City, still relishing the mild weather, which Dix said, “For us it was like going to Palm Springs.”

They settled in Troutdale when Ben Dix went to work for the Bissinger Wool Pullery. His mother became secretary of the Troutdale School Board.

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