Grace Dixon Bartleson Grace Dixon Bartleson slipped the bonds of Earth during a heavenly sunset on Saturday, October 8, 2016. Grace was born in Jacksonville, Florida on August 1, 1931, daughter and fifth child of Jarma Edward Dixon and Grace Chalmers Dixon. As a child of a railroad engineer, she lived in Jacksonville when school was in session, then took a train with her family to spend every summer in the small mountain village of Balsam, North Carolina, where her father had acquired a log cabin. The choice of Balsam as a summer home was not an accident. Its train station is the highest railroad point in the eastern United States. Grace relived, in a recently-written poem, how much she cherished that train trip, where she watched the twinkling lights of all the small towns from her passenger car window during that journey. Grace met the love of her life, Fred D. Bartleson Jr., in Balsam. Fred’s father was a physician who had traded his services for a vacation at a patient’s cabin. Grace and Fred began a courtship there, and were married and lifelong companions for over 64 years. After twenty years of touring on Air Force assignments, Grace and Fred retired to an orange grove on the Orange River near Fort Myers. They built a summer home in Balsam. In 1995, Grace and Fred moved to Melbourne to be closer to their children. Grace was a University of Florida graduate, a teacher, a mother of six children, the wife of an Air Force pilot, the Lee County School Board chairperson, and a calm and spiritual presence to all who knew her. Grace is survived by her husband, Fred; her brother, William Dixon; her children Fred III (Jean), Richard, James Andrew (Mary), Brett (Karen), Rebecca, and Mark (Lisa). Grandchildren include Sarah and Rebecca Bartleson; Angela and Matthew Bartleson; Joshua, Jeremy, and Katie Marr; and Elyse and Lilly Bartleson. Grace will be interred at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. Arrangements are being coordinated by Beach Funeral Homes. A celebration of life will be held at the Fountains of Melbourne on Saturday, October 15, 2016, from 1 to 3 p.m. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Pineda Presbyterian Church.