The Rev. Robert Keith Dixon, who was known as Tim, died on Dec. 30, 2020 at the University of Connecticut John Dempsey Hospital in Farmington, Conn. He was 84.
After a 40-year career as an Episcopal priest in New Jersey and New York, Tim and his wife, Linda, moved to Provincetown, where he was an active parishioner at St. Mary of the Harbor Church. He enjoyed collecting sea glass during long walks on the beach. Tim and Linda were also regular volunteers at the Soup Kitchen in Provincetown at the United Methodist Church. Tim also began work on a book of commentary on the creation in the Book of Genesis.
He was married for 57 years to Linda Silance Dixon, who died in 2019.
Tim was born in Delmar, N.Y. to Rebekah (Cooper) Dixon and Harry William Dixon. He graduated in 1954 from Bethlehem Central High School, where he played football and was elected senior class president. He attended Hamilton College, where he was a member of the Emerson Literary Society. He pursued seminary studies at Drew University and General Theological Seminary and was ordained in 1961.
He attended the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, and his ministerial calling took inspiration from the religious and social activism of the Civil Rights Movement.
He served as rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Passaic, N.J. for many years. His time there is still remembered as an exciting and challenging period in the life of the parish, driven by the activist energies and ideals of the 1960s and ’70s.
In the early 2000s, Tim served as priest-in-charge at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Cohoes, N.Y. His parishioners in Cohoes remember him for his good humor and his many stories about growing up in Lake George, N.Y., both of which he often used in his sermons.
Tim returned to live in Delmar and began a second career as an insurance agent in 1982. He was the manager of Adirondack Excess Insurance Company in Glens Falls, N.Y. until retiring in 2005.
Tim was known to friends and family as thoughtful and widely read, with a love for books, good food, serious conversation, laughter, and the beauty of the Adirondack mountains.
He is survived by his three sons and their partners: Robert and Dianna Dixon, James Dixon and Lisa Holle, and William Dixon and Anna Vitale; and by three grandchildren, Madalin Dixon, Keith Dixon, and Fiona Dixon.
His brother, Harry William Dixon Jr., died in 2018.
Tim’s family will remember him as a warm, devoted, and loving husband, father, and grandfather, with a great, gentle, and generous spirit.
A memorial service, to be held in Provincetown, will be announced at a date when interstate travel restrictions have been lifted.
The family asks that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made in Tim’s memory to the American Civil Liberties Union (aclu.org), the Sierra Club (sierraclub.org), or the Soup Kitchen in Provincetown (skipfood.org/donate).
