Rosalie and Wilbur started life together with very little.  Rosalie’s mother made her two pillowcases, two sheets, two quilts and some new underwear and gave them a cast iron frying pan, pot and an old trunk to put it all in.   Wilbur had his horse Dink, a shotgun and his father gave him an axe and a few other tools and an old beat up wagon.     

Wilbur soon got a job hauling lumber to the railroad for Mr. J. L. Howe who had a sawmill not too far from Wilbur’s father’s house.  They used oxen to “snake” the cypress logs out of the swamps to dryer land and then log carts pulled by mules to haul them to the sawmill.  Early the day Wilbur started work, Rosalie helped him load up the wagon with their few belongings, hitched up Dink, and went to the sawmill where Wilbur started work and Rosalie got settled into their new lodgings at the mill.

At first, they stayed with Mr. Howe and his wife and two children where they had a small room in the back of the house.  While Wilbur worked, Rosalie helped out Mrs. Howe doing the cooking and furnished the food for one week and Mrs. Howe furnished the food for two weeks and Rosalie did the cooking.   In her spare time Rosalie loved helping with the children and talking to Mrs. Howe.  After a few months, they moved into an old house next to the sawmill was that was used for a turpentine still, it was the best house at the mill.  It had a window and a door that closed up real good to keep the mosquitoes at night.  While the other “houses” were just shacks, papered with newspaper, theirs had a window and a door that closed up real good to keep the mosquitoes at night. 

About a year later, with  most of the timber in the area being cut, Mr. Howe closed the mill and moved it to Bronson.  Rosalie wished they could get a place of their own, but they did not have the land nor the money to buy anything.  Fortunately, there were lot of family in the area to turn to.  They first moved back to Mr. Mixson’s house for a few weeks, then lived with Wilbur’s brother Henry.  In the fall Wilbur and Rosalie were expecting their first son to be born.  Rosalie’s mother wanted the child to be born at their house, so they moved in with Rosalie’s parents where Adrian Wilbur Mixson was born in November 1921.  Unlike his father and grandfather he did not get the middle name of Darlington but rather the first name of his father.   

When Adrian was six weeks old, they heard that Wilbur’s brother Job had moved his family to Ocala, so they moved into Job’s old house.  Rosalie didn’t much like the living there for the house was dark and dreary with huge old oak trees covered with hanging moss shading the place all day. They lived there until their daughter Myrtice was born (Oct 1923).  Rosalie was so happy, she dearly loved “their sweet blue eyed, dark haired daughter”.

Also in 1921:

Miles Benjamin Mixson, Jr. was elected clerk of the Flemington Baptist Church.

Updated: 11-22-2021

New House