My father speaks of Tom Mix.

My father spent many years living in Dubois, Pennsylvania. I have no idea when, as he always told me about these things and I didn’t necessarily listen, as kids will do. So, there are gaps in my understanding. I was a late in life baby, as my father was 43 when I was born. He lived until July, 1970 so I certainly knew him as an adult (me, not him) but I guess I never asked all the right questions because I was used to having him around to answer.

However, he did tell me one fascinating thing that I never researched until today; he was invited to Tom Mix’s wedding. He said he didn’t know Tom Mix but he knew his parents. So, as you can see, he had lots of opportunities to be invited, but most of them would have made no sense.

Tom was married in 1902, 1905, 1907, 1918 and 1932. Given that my father Harry was born in 1899, it is difficult to imagine that he was invited to the first three weddings, he would have been a baby or a small child. The wedding, in 1918 is a distinct possibility, as he would have been 19. I have no idea how he would have known the Mix family, but I will give my late father the benefit of the doubt, he had no reason to make this one up.

Even when he told me as a child, it was way too late for me to have ever even seen a Tom Mix movie. The 1932 wedding was more likely, but it was less likely that the Mix parents would have been alive to invite my father.

Thomas Edwin Mix (born Thomas Hezekiah) Mix; January 6, 1880 to October 12, 1940) was an American film actor and the star of many early Western movies. He made a reported 336 films between 1910 and 1935, all but nine of which were silent features. He was Hollywood’s first Western megastar and is noted as having helped define the genre for all cowboy actors who followed.

Tom Mix was born in Mix Run, Pennsylvania, about 40 miles north of State Colleg, Pennsylvania. He spent his childhood growing up in nearby Dubois, Pennsylvania learning to ride horses and working on the local farm owned by John Dubois, a lumber businessman. He had dreams of being in the circus and was rumored to have been caught by his parents practicing knife throwing tricks against a wall using his sister as an assistant.

In April, 1898, during the Spanish-American War, he enlisted in the Army under the name Thomas E. (Edwin) Mix. His unit never went overseas, and Mix later failed to return for duty after an extended furlough when he married Grace I. Allin on July 18, 1902.

Mix was listed as AWOL on November 4, 1902 but was never court martialed or apparently even discharged. His marriage to Allin was annulled after one year. In 1905
Mix married Kitty Jewel Perinne, but this marriage also ended within a year.

In 1907 he married Olive Stokes.

He co-starred in several films with Victoria Forde and they fell in love. He divorced Olive Stokes in 1917.

Mix and Forde married in 1918 and they had a daughter, Thomasina Mix (Tommie), in 1922. They divorced in 1931.

Tom was married to Mabel Ward from 1932 until his death in 1940. In 1932, Tom Mix married aerial performer Mabel Ward, at Lutes' Gretna Green Wedding Chapel in Yuma. The two met while Mix was touring with the Sells-Floto Circus

I’m sorry my father didn’t attend one of these ”Hollywood” weddings, but the story stays with me, and now, I hope, with you.

I guess it would have been a bigger story if he had attended.