Ave Maria Living Magazine | Issue # 1 | September 2016

TH E DIX FAM ILY: DIXES NEVER QUIT! By: M eli Neubek and Tar esa Fassbender
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For those of us who are newer to Ave Maria, it is
hard to imagine the town without Maple Ridge,
Publix, or the Oratory, but the Dix family knows the
town before those things quite well. When they
moved to Ave in 2007, the Oratory was just a
skeleton of what it is now and the vast majority of
the current residential areas were inhabited by
wildlife alone.
The patriarch of the Dix family, Daniel, was present
for the groundbreaking procession as a couple
hundred folks walked in prayer through the tomato
fields and Ave Maria became a town. Daniel and
Monica were also the first to sign a commitment to
open a business in Ave Maria? that business was
The Bean of Ave Maria.
Standing outside of Sunday Mass, Monica Dix, wife
and mother of five, shares that their offertory
envelope is number 27? those envelopes were
handed out to residents starting with number
one? another fact proving their status as one of the
original families in Ave.
When they moved to Ave, they were a family of five,
with the youngest two girls not having been born
yet. Now, they are a family of seven with one dog,
Bob Lee Swagger. The Dix girls are: Isabella Ray,
?Bella,? 13; Gianna Carolina, ?Gigi,? 10; Josephina
Maria, ?Josie,? 9; Gabriella Lucia, ?Gabby,? 5; and Rosa
Emiliana, 2. Daniel and Monica had very specific
plans for their girls?names. Firstly, all of their
names have Italian roots, and most also honor a
family member or patron saint. But secondly, Monica
said, ?we wanted to be sure their names could work
if they wanted to be diplomats or rock stars.?
While unsure if the future has either of those two
careers in store for any of the girls, their current
interests are certainly varied, including track and
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