1920
Wilbur Courts Rosalie
James
D. Mixson and his Model T Ford
In the following months Wilbur would ride his horse “Dink” over to see Rosalie once or twice a week. He would go see her late in the afternoon after they had finished the farm work, sometimes bringing her something such as a watermelon he had found in the cornfield while breaking the corn. Sometimes he would borrow the girl’s buggy and take Rosalie for a ride, later that would become know as parking. Once he borrowed his dad’s Model T Ford and they rode around in it. She didn’t like the car as much as the wagon. In her 103 years of life she never learned to drive. On Sundays Wilbur’s sisters who still lived at home would have Rosalie over for dinner.
Tobias
Anderson
That fall Wilbur told her he loved her and asked her to marry him. She said yes but he would have to ask her parents. Rosalie new her mother would approve but was worried about her father, Tobias, for he didn’t want Rosalie to get married. Wilbur approached her mother first and she said she was happy for them. Wilbur then went to find her father, Tobias, who was cutting firewood in the woods in front of their house. As Rosalie sat with her mother on the front porch, they watched Wilbur walk into the woods and were worried what her father might say.
When Wilbur found Tobias, he was a bit worried for the old man was known to have a temper and he was standing there with an axe in his and as he approached. Wilbur stood in front of him and in a quiet voice asked if he could marry Rosalie. Tobias stood there for a moment, axe in his hand, looking at Wilbur as if deciding to take the axe to him or to say yes. Wilbur was relieved when he set the axe down, said yes, and reached out to shake Wilbur’s hand. “Well, I better get back.” Wilbur managed to say as he turned and walked back to the house while Tobias returned to chopping wood.
Rosalie and her mother let out a sigh of relief when they saw Wilbur walk out of the woods with a big smile on his face, and more importantly, with all his arms and fingers intact and told them her father said yes. Rosalie and her mother talked for a moment while Wilbur stood quietly there and set a date for the wedding in December. Wilbur, a man of fiew words simply said, "That's fine.."
When Wilbur returned back home, his family asked him what happened. He told them about going to ask Rosalie’s father and they then teased him for weeks about being afraid the old man would take the axe to him! Rosalie said that Wilbur and Tobias got along well after that, with Wilbur being a good listener, not talking much, never saying a bad thing about anyone, while Tobias liked to talk and discuss everything from the Bible to world news, he even took the New York Times (a newspaper!).
On December 22, 1920 James Kirkland Mixson died after being sick of sometime and laid to rest in the Flemington Baptist Church cemetery. J. K. had been the clerk for the Church since 1898. Miles Benjamin Mixson was elected as the new church clerk.
Updated: 11-22-2021