Anita Marie Sawyer Dibb

Anita Marie Sawyer Dibb passed away on October 20, at age 81. Anita was born in Pensacola, Florida, daughter of the late Clyde Herman Sawyer and Minnie Lee Pitman Sawyer. She was raised in the Pensacola area with her 3 sisters and 2 brothers, where she graduated from Tate High School in Cantonment, FL, and played clarinet in the Tate Band. After high school, Anita worked at the local Monsanto plant, attended Pensacola Junior College (music and business), and Mississippi College (business and Home Ec). She attended Gonzalez Baptist Church near Cantonment with her family, where she came to know Christ, and where she met and married David E. Dibb in 1966. After marriage, her life and David’s became one. They moved to Lubbock, TX, where David was attending Texas Tech, and after his graduation, his work took them back to Pensacola (Monsanto), then Warner Robins, GA (USAF), back to Pensacola, then Fayetteville, NC (where their 3 children graduated high school), then Florence, SC (Fiber Industries and Wellman, Inc.). In all things, she has been a Christian wife, mother, hostess, friend, and helpmate. For the past 32 years, as a member of the Florence Baptist Temple, Anita has continued in all these roles, plus Alto in the FBT choir, and lovingly serving as Deacon’s wife and co-adult Sunday School teacher, where she will be sorely missed. In addition to her parents, Anita was preceded in death by two sisters, Peggy Sawyer and Elizabeth (H.D. “Devon”) Rhodes and a nephew, Keith Rhodes. She is survived by her husband, David, and their three children, Whitney Breer, Kevin (Jennifer) Dibb, and Brian (Sonnet) Dibb, plus a sister, Jacqueline (Ralph Mason) Beane, and brothers, Robert (Kumiko) Sawyer and Tommy (Chong) Sawyer. She treasured her role as “Nana” to 8 grandchildren: Joshua and Noah Breer, Sadie and Davey Dibb, and Molly, Abby, Jake, and John Dibb, and as “Aunt Anita” to nieces and nephews, Rhonda, Belinda, Donna, Brady, Veronica, Adrianna, Matthias, Alexa, Tiara, Nicholas, AnnMarie, Sheldon, and Alyssa. The family will receive friends 1:00 – 2:00 PM on Saturday, October 26, 2024, at Florence Baptist Temple Chapel in Florence, SC. Funeral service will be held at 2:00 PM Saturday, October 26, 2024, at Florence Baptist Temple Chapel directed by Stoudemire-Dowling Funeral Home. She will be buried in Pensacola, FL, with her parents and other family. There will be a chapel service at Pensacola Memorial Gardens on Saturday, November 9th, at 11AM, for friends and family in the Pensacola area. Please sign the Guest Book for the family at www.stoudenmiredowling.com. “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” John 14