On June 11, 1885, just as the Arizona sun was sending the temperature up into the 100 degrees for the summer there arrived in the David John Wilson and Julia Didamia Johnson Wilson home in Tempe, Maricopa County, Arizona, a beautiful baby appropriately named June Rose. June for the month of her birth and Rose because of her complexion and beauty. An abundance of dark hair made her rosy cheeks seem all the more beautiful and the name more appropriate.
Her older brothers and sisters smothered her with hugs and kisses and especially lots of attention from little Martha Harriet, age two, who tried to hold her at every chance. The Wilson family was affectionate and life held increased meaning after the loss of Julia Edith just two years before.
Rose, as she came to be called, went to Mexico with her family when she was 26 months old. By this time she was a big sister to her baby sister, Gladys Lovina, who was born in Mesa the year the family moved to Mexico and to Ruth Bloomfield, who was born a year and four months after their arrival in Mexico.
Rose didn't get to be the baby long enough to become spoiled as the new arrivals, Gladys and Ruth, received most of the attention. Rose grew up in Colonia Diaz, Chihuahua, Mexico attended school there and at the Colonia Juarez Academy. Her Father with his second wife, Adelia Cox Wilson, had moved to Colonia Oaxaca in the Spring of 1897 leaving her and her mother in Colonia Diaz to operate and sell the orchard. In the Fall of 1902, Rose, now 17, moved with her mother to Colonia Oaxaca.
Each school year Rose would go over to Juarez and stay with her older sister Mary Ellen (Mazie) Wilson Cluff and attend the Juarez Academy where she obtained her teaching certificate.
In the Fall of 1907 rose was hired to teach school in Colonia Oaxaca. Her sister, Esther Delcina, had previously taught here. The Church (ward) paid half of her salary and the parents with children in school paid half. Pearl, who was Rose's niece (daughter of sister, Pearl Melissa), was in June Rose's class room. She later wrote, "How I loved school, Aunt Rose could draw so well and drew autumn leaves, spooks, pumpkins, holly and lots of things and colored them with colored chalk. She taught us lots of songs for programs and we put on a cantata called "The Dance of the Wood Nymphs."
Apparently June Rose lived with her sister, Pearl Melissa Haymore, when she was expecting because Rose helped in the home in addition to teaching school. Young Pearl Melissa wrote as follows: "By November I was having to help in the house as my mother was expecting a new baby and could not do much work...Aunt June could not do all of the work. My mother took real sick...I remember well when Aunt June came... and said, 'Pearl, your mother is dead'."
June Rose, who was later to become a nurse, had her share of early experiences with the illness and death of her older brother David Johnson, Jr. and also when her older sister Pearl Melissa, died at child birth.
June Rose left Mexico for Mesa, Arizona, with her parents in 1911. The author has been unable to find any record of what she did after her arrival in Mesa. Later, she was hired as a nurse in Miami, Arizona, at the Miami Inspiration Hospital. Where she obtained her training has not been verified. Letters show that she was in El Paso for a time and the author believes it was there she took her training and became a registered nurse.
During the great flu epidemic that took millions of lives in the United States and Europe following World War I, June Rose took sick and died January 17, 1919, and was buried in the Mesa City Cemetery.

(Written by Malin Wilson Lewis from the Wilson Family History Book)∼Daughter of David Wilson and Miss Johnson of Illinois. Rose was born in Tempe Arizona in 1885. She was a nurse in Miami Arizona. She never married.

AZ DC 168/47