Austin bomb victims' families united by one church

AUSTIN, Texas -- A single church unites the families of two victims of the recent package bombs in East Austin.

Since 1929, Wesley United Methodist Church has stood like a beacon on the corner of San Bernard and Hackberry streets in the Sugar Hill district of East Austin. From the beginning, churchgoers have figured prominently in education, philanthropy and civil rights activism.

Founded in 1865 during a time of organizing by the Freedmen's Bureau in the basement of the Tenth Street Methodist Church -- where whites worshipped upstairs -- its shared Methodist roots in Austin actually go back to the 1840s.

In the early 1970s, two new families brought fresh energy and ideas to the congregation: The Rev. Freddie Dixon shook things up a bit with his youthful cadences and willingness to try all sorts of music. Two of his congregants were Dr. Norman Mason and his wife, LaVonne Mason.

It wasn't long before Dixon was working in the church basement with LaVonne Mason to create the Austin Area Urban League, which advocates for jobs and education. They remained good friends, and although he retired from the pastorship after 22 years of service, Dixon still shows up for Wesley services now overseen by the Rev. Sylvester Chase.

On March 2, Dixon's son, Anthony Stephan House, 39, died when the first of three packages exploded in the Austin area. On March 12, the Masons' grandson, 17-year-old Draylen Mason, was killed in the second explosion.

Machree Gibson, a sixth-generation congregant, attorney and former president of Texas Exes, remembers when both families arrived at Wesley.

"They were pillars of the community," said Gibson, her voice stricken with grief. She remained close with the Masons and Dixons, who started out as friends of her parents. "It's tragic that it would happen to them; it's tragic that it would happen to anybody."

She recalls that in the 1970s, Mason was a top dentist for the still mostly segregated African-American community of East Austin, with a practice on East Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. His wife promised that she would stay at home and perhaps volunteer for charities. That did not last long.

She organized and led the Town Lake Chapter of Links Inc., a public service group of African-American women. She volunteered for candidate Mark White, who named her a regent of Texas Woman's University. At Texas Woman's, she quietly changed the university's approach to recruiting, staffing and alumni services, among other things.

"I made lots of changes," she told the Austin American-Statesman in 2013. While her style was not confrontational, she encountered plenty of opposition. "I told my husband, 'If I don't get back here in time, call the state troopers.'"

Impeccably mannered, she later started the Etiquette Authority to train young people in social skills.

The son of a bishop, Dixon, along with being the "father of the Austin Area Urban League," served in the leadership of the United Way, Child & Family Services Inc., iACT and the Austin Planning Commission. He is a special assistant to the University of Texas vice-president of the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement.

None of this public service would come as a surprise to their fellow churchgoers, who have included in their ranks Oral Elliott, father of Austin City Council Member Ora Houston; late educator and high school namesake Charles Akins; long-time librarian Betty Redd Washington; Theodore Youngblood, headwaiter at the Driskill and Stephen F. Austin hotels; and John T.Q. Quinn, former president of Huston-Tillotson University and owner of King-Tears Funeral Home.

As the Rev. Chase told the American-Statesman in 2015: "We've always been looking after the down-and-out, the oppressed, those who are hurting."

Michael Barnes writes for the Austin American-Statesman. Email: mbarnes(at)statesman.com.

Story Filed By Cox Newspapers

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