Veteran receives COVID-19 vaccination on 101st birthday

Virginia Dixon among first N.C. State Veterans Home - Black Mountain residents to be vaccinated

Fred McCormick
The Valley Echo
December 29, 2020

U.S. Army veteran Virginia Dixon is among the first residents at the N.C. State Veterans Home - Black Mountain to receive a vaccination for COVID-19. Photo courtesy of PruittHealth

A 101-year-old veteran celebrated her birthday on Dec. 29 by becoming one of the first residents of the N.C. State Veterans Home - Black Mountain to receive a vaccination for COVID-19.

Virginia Dixon, who was born in the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Nation and served as a nurse in the U.S. Army through two major conflicts, has been a patient of the home since 2018.

Dixon served at Walter Reed General Hospital during World War II and as a nurse in the 8063rd MASH unit in the Korean conflict, where she recalls bombs and active combat near her unit. She left Korea and went to Fort Benning in Georgia, where she married in 1953 and had two children.

After years of caring for her son and daughter as a stay-at-home mother, she worked in a rehabilitation center in Black Mountain from 1977-81.

Residents and staff of long-term care facilities were among the first people to receive the vaccine in N.C., where the State Veterans Home, which is managed by PruittHealth, is in the process of inoculation.