Tennessee State Museum, Nashville

Sarah Rebecca Dixon (1835—1928) was the daughter of John Dixon and Elizabeth Boyd. John Dixon was a farmer and a distiller, and the family lived on Shoal Creek in Wayne County. Sarah married James Oliver Perry Hollis in 1853. Her husband was a farmer in Wayne Co., where he also served as a deputy sheriff, a constable, and a justice of the peace. Sarah gave birth to 14 children, including one unnamed child who died at birth. She was a widow for 38 years after her husband died in 1890. She is buried in Bethlehem Cemetery, Wayne County.

Sarah was only six or seven when she worked her carefully balanced sampler. She included two alphabets and many motifs: five baskets with flowers, four birds, two flowers, two trees, and two strawberries.