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Dodson, Meta Batteiger

Last Name: Dodson
First Name: Meta Batteiger
Dates:
15.2.1861 (Date of Birth)
9.6.1884 (Date of Marriage)
14.7.1939 (Date of Death)
Biography/History: Meta Batteiger was born in Waterloo Illinois on 15 Feb 1861 and married engraver and jeweler George Roley Dodson (1861-1927) in Decatur, Illinois on 9 Jun 1884. In search of a place to start a jewelry store, George visited Spokane Falls, Washington in 1887 and partnered with Daniel Wetzel (Wetzel & Dodson Jewelers). After 1889 he formed his own business (George R. Dodson Jewelers) in the Mohawk Building, 517 W Riverside Ave. The Dodson’s lived at several Spokane locations before 1896, when they moved into 1117 W 5th and their first daughter Lois (1896-1965) was born. Second child Dorothy (1898-1969) arrived in 1898, and by 1900 George’s mother and sister were living in Spokane. In 1908 George and Meta relocated to the Browne’s Addition neighborhood, first living in the Westminster Apartments (2301 W Pacific), also traveling to the Middle East and Europe that year. The next few years found them on West Pacific: in the new Westgate Apartments (#2306), then at #2216, and finally at #2438. Apart from social obligations and the associated responsibility to dress fashionably, Meta’s main focus was on their daughters’ education. In 1911-12 both girls attended Brunot Hall, a private Browne’s Addition girls’ school, and in September 1913 the family took an extended tour abroad, “giving the girls the best we could afford in an educational way,” according to Meta. The family toured England and Scotland, enjoyed London theater, visited Versailles and Paris, and drove through Italy and Austria to Dresden, Germany. George returned home in April 1914, leaving his wife and daughters to study music and German language and to continue touring. As world war loomed, the women knitted for the Red Cross and watched German boys going off to war. By early December 1914, with sea travel increasingly hazardous, the consulate urged Americans to return home immediately. Meta complied, “very unwillingly and much disappointed”; they had also planned time in Egypt and Japan, and as she noted to George, it was now too late to send the girls back to Brunot Hall. Lois was interested in a New England girls’ school, and Dorothy could study [music] in Boston; she “was too young to quit school.” “We have brought all our old clothes back with us… there was a time when [Lois] felt rather proud of me in my Paris gown but now I look like a back number in it. Well, Germany & especially Dresden is a poor place to buy clothes.” The girls finished their education at Dana Hall in Wellesley MA and shared a formal debut in 1916 at Spokane’s Davenport Hotel; by then the family lived in a new home at 214 E 13th. After Lois married John Penn Fix (1890-1970) in 1919, both Meta and Dorothy spent time with George in Hawaii and California for his health. Dorothy married Robert P. Porter (c.1902-1974) in 1927, just before George died. By 1930 Meta had moved into the Davenport Hotel. For many years the jewelry store, George R. Dodson Inc, had registered Meta as a company officer; now she and her son-in-law, John Penn Fix, managed it together until her death in 1939.
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