As the years add up, so do our joys, and sorrows: Latest sadness is the passing of dear friend ‘Gwen’ Dickson, 78

On this journey called life, there will be happy times, filled with celebrations and laughter. And there will be sad times, filled with tears and sadness. As a woman in the evening of my own life, I have experienced an abundance of both — joy and sadness. But that’s just the way life works. And I understand.

Lately, though, it seems that the sadness has been coming around way too often. I get over the loss of one friend, and before the gloom wears off, I get word of the loss of another dear friend.

Such was the case a few weeks ago when I learned of the death of the wonderful and beautiful Gwendolyn Yvonne Green Dickson at age 78. She was the wife of Miami’s first Black chief of police, Clarence Dickson, a handsome cowboy-hat-wearing man who served the city of Miami well.

The couple made a striking figure. Gwen, as we called her, was stunning. She had a smile that would brighten any room she walked in, no matter how dark it was. Her laughter was like the sound of wind chimes being caressed by a gentle breeze. And when she spoke to you, she looked deep into your eyes, as though she could see your very insides.

Gwen was the youngest of five siblings, all of whom preceded her in death. She was educated in Miami-Dade County schools, graduating seventh in her class from Miami Northwestern High School. She attended Hampton University in Virginia and later graduated from Barry University, where she earned a degree in psychology.

Integrated Miami Beach Police Dispatchers Corps

A loving wife to her husband and a doting mother to her daughters Traci Aveni and Raquel Dickson King and Raquel’s husband Jonathan, and grandchildren, Gwen was also a trailblazer.

In the mid-1960’s, she integrated the Miami Beach Police Dispatchers Corp. She was so efficient at her job that the Miami Beach Sun Reporter did a feature on her. The headline was: “The Woman Who Can Do Ten Things at Once.”

She was a worker of goodwill. After becoming the wife of a police officer. Gwen saw firsthand, the loneliness and fear that some other police wives faced. So she proposed and established the City of Miami Police Spousal Association, an organization that offered spiritual counseling and healing for the spouses of Miami police officers.

She was a dedicated wife, standing beside her husband urging him to be all that he could be. Her encouragement paid off. In 2021, the City of Miami Police College was named for her husband, who at the time said to Gwen, “Everything you touch, you make it better… including me.”

And she was a dedicated church worker. Gwen was lifelong member of the Historic Greater Bethel AME Church in Overtown, where she was christened as an infant; she grew up to be one of the church’s most dedicated workers.

‘She was always there to lend a helping hand’

Lonnie Lawrence, a longtime friend of Gwen’s said, “It was a joy to know Gwen. We grew up in Greater Bethel, singing in the choir together. She was such a fun person to be around but was always there to lend a helping hand to anyone who needed it.” Lawrence is a retired Miami-Dade Corrections director and is a former Miami-Dade police commander.

Tom Hunker, who was a young police officer with the Miami Beach Police Department and who later became the chief of police at Bal Harbour, remembered the early days working with Gwen.

“I was very close to Gwen. Back in the ’70s and ’80s when the Miami Beach Police Department had a juvenile department, Gwen was an assistant to the director of the department. She was like a mom to the youngsters we brought in,” Hunker said.

“When we had a child who had been in a violent situation, she would come in and calm the kid down. Most of us on the force were young at the time, and pretty much learned on the job. Gwen knew just how to talk to the kids and their parents,” he said.

Hunker and his wife Marian were married in 1979. When they got engaged, Gwen threw them a “pre-wedding” luncheon.

“To this day, I still have the invitation,” he said.

When Gwen married her husband, she became stepmother to his two sons — Clarence Jr., and Phillip — who preceded her in death.

“My sons called her ‘Mom,’” Dickson said. They loved her and she loved them. Even after they grew up and left home, they were always here. They loved her cooking… I lost them all — my sons and Gwen — in the past two years. But I have so many wonderful memories. Gwen’s deeds — the things she did for others, including me — keep coming back to me. Just thinking of her good heart helps to sustain me.“

I was out of town when our Gwen died and was laid to rest. But I was told that she had a beautiful homegoing celebration, as we Blacks call our funerals, early this month. Still, her passing has left a void in the heart of all who knew and loved her.

Bea Hines can be reached at bea.hines@gmail.com