Bowser was born on January 7, 1855, in Amelia County, the daughter of Henry Dixon, a carpenter, and Augusta A. Hawkins Dixon, a domestic servant. She was probably born into slavery. After freedom came in 1865, the family moved to Richmond and started a new life. Religion and education were the foundations of the family, and they joined Richmond’s largest congregation, First African Baptist Church. Dixon first taught in the Sunday school there. Her father recognized her aptitude and enrolled her in the Richmond public schools, where she initially received instruction from northern teachers of the Freedmen’s Bureau.
The superintendent of the Freedmen’s Bureau schools in Virginia, Ralza M. Manly, identified exemplary students and selected them for teacher training at the Richmond Normal and High School (after 1870 the Richmond Colored Normal School). Dixon became one of Manly’s protégés and excelled in English, mathematics, music, and reading. She graduated with the second-h