Family History and Life as Remembered by Tom and Enos Alan

TOM:
Enos and I have gotten together to try to tell a history of the Mills family.
Joel Webster Mills was born on February 22, 1875, on a farm near Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, later moving to Hubbard, Iowa.  He was the fifth child of Alexander and Ruth Anna (Terrell) Mills.  They were Quakers and regularly attended the Friends' meetings.  The extent of the formal education of Joel and his brothers is unknown.  The only textbook surviving Is a McGuffey Reader and it's unclear how many years they attended school.  Joel's third grade reader has been kept and it reveals a level of education well above what is true of a third-grader today.

Joel

The first part of Joel's life was undoubtedly kept quite busy working on the farm, and in 1895 the family moved to Estherville, Iowa. That's up in northern Iowa.  They had an 80-acre farm, part of which was in farm land and part in timber,  In 1900, much to the objection of his family, Joel got a job with the Illinois Central Railroad as a fireman.  In those days, railroad work was pretty dangerous and exhausting and his folks worried about him quite a bit. I think he stayed at that job until 1903.  Because of that experience on the railroad with steam boilers, he took a job as engineer on a stationary steam engine that was used for running thrashing machines and followed the harvest.  This took him into northern Minnesota into the Red River Valley.
ENOS:

Ida

Ida Jane Stewart was the daughter of Thomas Deachman and Agnes (Ferguson) Stewart.  The young couple immigrated from Canada in 1881, along with about a dozen other young-marrieds.  Her story is best told in a paper she wrote in 1952.  It goes this way:


"Seventy years ago on April 6th, 1882, I first saw the light of day.  I guess I didn't pay much attention to it then, but I'm sure I did cause quite a disturbance in the home and, indeed, in the neighborhood.  In those early days in Fisher's  Landing in Minnesota, life was very primitive.  No good roads, no telephones, far from doctors.
I wonder how women ever had the courage to have babies.  But in my case,  my grandmother came all the way from Ontario, Canada, to welcome me.  My father and mother had immigrated to the United States the year before, with about a dozen other young couples, full of dreams, full of hopes, and most of all, courage and faith to make homes in the new country.  They settled along the Morais, a small river which had almost dried up.  Otherwise known as a swamp, it was fringed by good timber that provided fuel and logs for building those first small homes.
These folks depended so much on each other for help that everyone was ready at any emergency to be on hand. So it was on the night I was born.  Several women and my grandmother all helped through the ordeal.  In the weeks following there were two more babies born in the settlement,  These two have passed on to their reward some time ago.  My mother had six other children, all living now except for one sister.  I remember one incident that my mother used to tell of the night I was born.   It being spring time, snow had melted and, of course, no roads and water in all the low places. As my father went to get one of the neighboring women, ice had formed and was so sharp that it cut the horses' legs as they waded through the water and ice.
Ida very young
about four

 

about eighteen
As I grew, when 1 was about four or five, I stayed with my grandmother a great deal.  I remember how I disliked going back home.  I think now it was because I had all the attention there.  As I had a sister and a brother by that time, I always liked to stay at my grandparents' home and always helped take care of them, as long as my grandmother lived.  I was 22 when my grandmother died and shortly after that I married and began to make plans for my own life, which is another chapter."

Well, Mama never finished the other chapter, but I can fill a little around it.  The Stewart family attended the Presbyterian Church in Mallory and that village is where my mother finished high school.  After high school she went to a business college in East Grand Forks, Minnesota.  She used to tell about the fact that when she would come home for a weekend, her transportation back to school was her horse and buggy.  Her horse's name was Johnny.  Johnny knew the area so well that she could take her horse and buggy back to East Grand Forks, unload her luggage and turn the horse loose and Johnny would find his way back to Mallory without any guidance.






wedding

wedding day
She met Joel Webster Mills in 1903 when he came with a threshing crew to thresh Grandpa Stewart's grain. She reports that she wasn't terribly impressed with him when they first met, but apparently Papa was impressed with her and began a correspondence.  He returned the following year with the threshing crew and before the season was over had proposed marriage and she accepted.

dress lace

detail of the lace on the dress
They were married that November.  After the marriage ceremony they journeyed to Estherville, Iowa, where the Mills family lived, spent a short period of time there, and then went to Ames, Iowa, where they enrolled in University of Iowa extension courses; Ida Jane enrolled in some home economics courses and J.W. enrolled in engineering courses, where he learned surveying.  When they completed their courses, they settled in Windom, Minnesota.  

 TOM:
The year was 1906.  Road conditions in the whole area were pretty primitive, because most transportation was with horse and buggy.  There were a few cars starting to show up.  Joel got a position with the county as a highway engineer to lay out and develop roads.  It was during that year that the first child was born-- Stewart Alexander, November 19, 1906.
  Papa's first car


This is a picture of the first car they bought in Lakefield, about 1907.
It was a two cylinder engine with opposing pistons, located under
the front seat.
Papa got his first new car in 1907.  It was an International, high-wheeler; wheels were about three and a half to four feet high, thin hard  rubber tires, engine under the front seat, two-cylinder.  He had a problem with it.  He had been accustomed to getting expense money-- mileage-- for his horse and buggy.  The judge that was controlling that account declared the automobile was not practical; he really shouldn't be using it in that work because he was scaring all the animals. It took Papa quite awhile to convince them it was practical and he should get his expenses.  He worked that job until 1914, moving to Lakefield in 1909 because it was more centrally located.
Ruth Agnes was born in Windom April 30, 1908; Eunice Hazel and Alvin Wesley were born in Lakefield-- Eunice on March 5, 1910 and Alvin May 14, 1912.
the wagon
 
When the vehicle finally wore out in about 1920, Joel took the chassis and turned it into a wagon.  Here is a picture with John and Alvin on top.
International Harvester's origins as a truck manufacturer go back to the early 1900's  when they ventured into the Auto Buggy market.  Designed to look like a horse drawn buggy, it was essentially a dual purpose vehicle built for farmers to carry both their families and farm produce.
Southern Minnesota is made up of some beautiful farmland.  In those days it had a lot of swampy areas.  Papa saw an opportunity to go into business for himself.  They moved to Granada in 1914 and he went into business as a drainage engineer.  It was a very labor-intensive business and he developed quite a crew of men digging ditches by hand, laying tile, draining water into the local streams.  I remember one episode he liked to tell when one workman came to him and said, "Could you swear me in?"  Papa said, "I don't understand why you need to be sworn in."  "Well your foreman just cussed me out."  All of this history is before my time, but Enos' history starts in Granada, so I'm going to let him take  over and share some of his thoughts.  

ENOS:
The Mills family lived in Granada from 1914 until 1923.  During that time four  more kids were born.    John Joel Mills, August 5, 1914;  Robert Everett, January 2, 1917; Louella Marie, April 29, 1918; and Enos Allen, March 2, 1921.  Those were busy times.  Papa was busy with his swamp drainage; his high- wheeler wore out; he bought new cars; he converted the high-wheeler to a wagon that a team of horses could pull to haul wood and such.  We have a picture of that wagon with John and Rusty sitting on a pile of wood.  They lived in the village of Granada for quite some time and then moved to the country.

Ida Jane was busy raising a family and involved in church and social activities in the village.  She was invited to speak at a mother's club in 1916.  During this speech-- it was about raising a family-- she commented, "If Johnny wants to build an airplane and you know it won't fly, you must  help him build the airplane.  It's not good enough to live for your children, you must live with them."  That was quite a statement coming at that time and it rings so true today.  They moved to the country near the edge of town, within walking distance to school.  That was important to my mother.  She wanted the kids to be able to walk to school.

Papa wired the house for electricity and it turned out that the center of the house was a log cabin that had been added to.  He had to drill holes through logs to string the wires.  It was rather interesting that sometime after the job was done there was a storm and the wiring made it possible for the lightning to travel into the house and caught it on fire.  The story goes that I was a baby at that time and Eunice carried me out of the house on a blanket and parked me under a pine tree while they put the fire out.

We have neglected to mention that in 1906 Grandma Stewart passed away and Mama's younger brother and sister. Uncle Stanley and Aunt Ella, came to live with us.  Uncle Stanley was about 12 years old at the time and Aunt Ella about 9.  They lived with us for several years, so Mama was a busy lady.  She did have time to get involved in community activities.  During World War I she found the time to assist the ladies of Granada with what they called "The War Winner Cook Book", the front page of which states, "Published under the direction of Mrs. J.W. Mills, Granada, Minnesota.  Every recipe given in this book has been tried and each one is recommended as being satisfactory. Mrs. Mills has used each one except those credited otherwise.  Mrs. Mills' reputation for superior cooking is so well known that her recommendation of these recipes puts them beyond the experimental class."





The recipes were recommended in accordance with a presidential proclamation to save food for the troops overseas.  The headings on the pages were, "Saving of Wheat and Meat", "Dine on the Dark Flour and Do a Deed for Democracy". Another page says, "Corner the Corn Meal and Cook for Your Country.  You Will Learn to like it.  Use it and Make Uncle Sam Smile."  "Feed the World.  Make Your Kitchen Cooperate With Your Country."  They had Wheatless Monday, Meatless Tuesday, wheatless and meatless days, recommended by Hoover.  They called it Hooverized Week.  Hoover was the Secretary of the Interior at that time and directed this food-saving program.  The cook book was published and we have some copies of it in the family.  Some of the recipes seem a little weird, using barley instead of wheat flour, and things like that.
 
I was born a year or so after a terrible flu epidemic.  During the epidemic, my Uncle Enos and a neighbor lady had gone from house to house taking care of the sick people, with Uncle Enos doing the chores and taking care of the animals.  When I was born, this lady  called Uncle Enos and said that Ida Jane had a new baby boy and they were going to name him Enos.  Uncle Enos was so excited about it that he came tearing over from Huntley to Granada-- that's about six miles-- and wanted to see little Enos.  My mother said that was the first she knew my name was going to be Enos and she didn't have the courage to tell him it was just a rumor.  Ruth told me the brothers and sisters learned that evening that my name was going to be Enos and they needed to pick out a middle name. So sitting around the kitchen table, the other kids decided that my middle name should be Allen, because sitting over on a shelf was a bag of Ethan Allen flour that Mama had used for baking bread.  They decided that Enos Allen sounded pretty good.  So I was named after a rumor and a sack of flour.  

 By 1923 the drainage business was slowing down and Papa got an offer to take over the job of highway engineer for Martin County in southern Minnesota.  They moved from Granada to Fairmont.  He worked at that job for a couple of years, then moved over to the experimental department of the Fairmont Railway Motors, where they designed railway repair equipment such as weed burners, ballast cleaners, etc.  The family was growing up. Stewart and Ruth were in high school and the management of the family was becoming more of a chore.  They decided they needed to get out of town into the country, some place where they could keep a better watch on their boys.  They heard about a place called Hollandale where there was an opportunity to grow potatoes and this would be a good business.  I remember going out to Uncle John's one Sunday.  They lived in Huntley, about 20 miles from Fairmont.  There was discussion about our moving to Hollandale and Uncle John decided that's what they should do, too, getting out of the general farming business and into the more specialized business of growing potatoes and onions-  So the John Mills family  and the J.W. Mills family moved to Hollandale in 1927.  

Joel Webster Mills and Ida Jane Stewart

2016.... these two left a legacy.... I haven't even begun to try to count the descendants. 

Joel Webster Mills married Ida Jane Stewart in 1905. This is their story, as told by Ida in 1966 and as remembered by  Thomas Deachman Mills and Enos Alan Mills in 2001.

One day in 1966 my grandmother, Ida Jane Stewart Mills, was caught in a reminiscent mood on tape talking about the history of her family. 

Fast forward to 2001. My uncle, Enos Alan Mills, and my father, Thomas Deachman Mills, decided to tell the rest of the story. 

On January 10, 1963, when she was 80 years old, Ida Jane Mills was caught on tape in a reminiscent mood.  Much feeling and charm are lost in attempting to put down on paper what she said.  What follows is only summarized excerpts. Typically, there was no dwelling on her own hard work and contributions.

IDA'S STORY

Grandpa Stewart and his brother Peter came with others from Scotland, probably Edinburgh, to Lanark, Ontario, Canada. This was only west to Michigan, but was called “out west” because Western Canada wasn’t settled then. There are a lot of our relatives in Canada...

Pa and about a half dozen others came in an emigrant drive to get Minnesota and Dakota settled because there was nobody living there.  They went to what turned out to be bad land, north and east of Grand Forks.  The land is full of alkali, but they didn’t know it until they went to get water.  I don’t think anyone made it much of a farm country, to this day.  The government gave them a chance to get another claim if they wanted it. they were kind of disgusted with it all.  There were a lot of things they had to do on these claims.  They had to live on them at least six months of the year, build a livable house of some kind, generally just big enough to live in, till so many acres a year and plant it in order to prove up on it.  They didn’t get it free.  If they left it even a day over when they were supposed to be back, somebody else might jump the claim.  

It was getting kind of hard to get a good claim and hold it, for there was nothing there to live on but what they could make.  The Great Northern made a deal with the government to run a railroad through there and were granted so much land to sell to get money to build the railroad.  Pa paid $7.00 and acre for 160 acres [southeast of Grand Forks] and then he didn’t have all the restrictions forcing him to do all these other things.  He could work it if he could, make a living if he could; in the end he said it was more satisfactory than having all the restrictions.  That was our first quarter [section] . Bare prairie, never been plowed, had nothing on it, only grass.

He got a team of oxen and these fellows went together and provided themselves with a plow, only one lay on the plow, one sod at a time.  They did a little plowing the first year, then I don’t know what they did for a living in the winter, cut wood, I guess... there was a strip of timber along the Marais, a nearly dead river.  That was called a state acre, belonged to the state and they let the settlers cut wood there; the land wouldn’t be sold.  Dave Morrow had quite a strip of timber on his land.  That was the way they started.

The next year there was a whole bunch of younger married fellows came. The women didn’t come out until later. Mama and Papa weren’t married yet but Mama came out with this group of young marrieds. they settled back further from this timber strip. The rest of it was wide-open prairies; you could look for miles. There wasn’t a tree or anything for miles, not even a hill....Pa had built a little house. It was just a straight house, I suppose about as big as this room [14 x 18]. I remember it had a lean-to on the back and an upstairs. I was born in that house.

For the oxen they cut poles and put some straw on top for a barn... There was a grainery. It was a funny thing--don’t remember seeing very many of them. Instead of putting studding on the inside like they do now, the studding was on the outside and the boards were smooth on the inside. I suppose they had a reason for it. [the weight of the grain would have pushed the boards off otherwise.]....

I was six or seven when we moved up to where Grandpa Ferguson had his place. He had come out about two years after Pa, going out further than the first settlers. That was about eight miles from where we lived. That was the rim of the prairie when I remember it, as I was growing up. I’ve been past there lots of times since then. First settlers--no roads, no telephones....

They had brought some horses from Canada. There was one we had for years, called Rube, black with white on face and feet. We had that horse so long, years and years. The last couple of years he only ran around the pasture. Then Pa had more horses than that when we moved up to the other farm. We kept the first farm, didn’t sell it, but moved up to where Grandpa was, a quarter of a mile from him. Then we had two farms about four miles apart. From then on that’s where we lived, up until I got married. It’s still there. They were getting along pretty well, had the land all plowed and began making money. There were some real nice buildings in that country. About the first thing they would do was plant some trees. Then the youngsters were growing up and they had to build schools. Pa donated the corner the school was on where Edie and I went. Her name was Edith, we called her Edie. Ida Jane and Edith Elizabeth. She couldn’t say Elizabeth; she was a little thing, we called her Lithabeth....

Ida, Edie, Bob, Kate, Tote [Margaret], Stanley and Ella. Most of them never went very far. I was the first one to get out of there. Isn’t that funny, they just stayed right there... Grandpa said, “Why can’t you marry someone your own nationality?” I remember one time I was going to school in town and there was a Bohemian fellow I used to go with sometimes. He came out to the farm one Sunday when I was staying with Grandpa....After he left, Grandpa wanted to know what nationality he was and I told him Bohemian. Grandpa said, “You best just leave him alone. How would you feel going into the town with a naikin on your head and a jar of butter under your arm?” [Loses much without the accent!] That’s the way the old Bohemian women came, dressed good, but they were from the old country and had this big, black square with usually big red flowers embroidered on a corner and they would put it over their head. This fellow was real nice; I wasn’t thinking about marrying him.

As time went by, more people came in.  The railroad at first ended at Crookston.  That’s about 25 miles, then they got it through to Grand Forks so they could send their crops out.  I remember Grand Forks as just a little place, mud roads and all.

Pa’s brothers Alex and Bill came and stayed at our place awhile, then Alex went out to Dakota, near Fargo.  He had enough money saved to start a blacksmith shop, since there were quite a few settlers by then.  This native sod was awfully hard to plow.  the roots were deep and hard and after about one day’s plowing they would have to sharpen the plow.  So Alex set up the blacksmith shop and a small house and sent for Aunt Maggie, back in Canada, not married yet, but she came out.  When she got off the train, Alex met her and they were married.  She didn’t have any idea the kind of place she was going to.  When they got there, with this little bit of a house and the prairie all around, Alex couldn’t find the key and ended up pushing her through the window... they lived there years and years, made a lot of money, too.  He was a schemer... he was honest enough, just had his head working.

[Question: How did you meet Papa?] 

All Pa ever did was farm.  He had a thrashing machine and had to have an engineer that he got from Grand Forks [to run the steam engine]. I was staying at Grandpa’s then after Grandma died, but I went home a few times and met this engineer.  I didn’t like him very well, thought he was kind of goofy or something, didn’t pay much attention to him.  Then I left Grandpa’s and went back home to stay because Grandpa was going to his son’s.  Joe stayed and was working on some machinery.  So that’s how I got to know him in the first place, just a common engineer.  

I thought he was pretty nice, so we went together quite awhile.  Then he went back down to Iowa that fall and we wrote letters back and forth.  The next summer, in August, he came back.  I don’t know if Pa had hired him ahead or not, but he was there all through the fall.  So I saw quite a bit of him and we decided to get married. That was along about October or so.  

We were married on the 22nd of November, 1904.  We went down to Iowa where Joe’s folks lived, Estherville, then further south where they used to live, for kind of a honeymoon.  Then we came back to Windom where he had been doing some road work and that’s where we set up housekeeping... we lived there for awhile; Stewart and Ruth were born there.  Joe got his first car there.  It really was one of the first ones around.  International, high rubber wheels and it made lots of noise, had a chain drive.  There weren’t very many wrecks then... then we went to Lakefield, where Eunice and Alvin were born.  John, Bob, Luella and Enos were all born in Granada.  

The last part of our time at Granada was on a small “farm”, about 25 acres, just outside Granada... we had a couple of cows, a team of horses, chickens and all the rest that goes with it.  Papa wasn’t home much of the time in the daytime, doing tile drainage work.  Then we moved to Fairmont [Papa was a highway engineer and later worked at the Railway Motors] Tom was born there. Stewart joined the Navy about then.  The rest of you boys were getting bigger, running around with nothing to do, so we decided we’d get enough land to make our living on and give you boys a chance to learn something besides how to play.  I guess you all did.  

I remember the first crop at Hollandale; the first thing you boys had to do was weed about five acres of onions by hand every few weeks.  We didn’t have a bit of trouble with you running around nights or any other time.  And then we raised potatoes, too.  The potato business built up pretty big, but we didn’t like living there.  That was a sort of new project in Hollandale. It had been an old swamp at one time, low land with a lot of peat soil, so we decided we’d move someplace else and find a bigger place and moved to Freeborn, then on to Easton; I don’t remember just how long-- it seemed like a long time to me.  

Then we had a wild idea that northern Minnesota was the place to go and we went up on the Iron Range [near Biwabik]. I don’t know, it seems like we must have been looking for scenery or something, because there wasn’t much good farming that we could find.  Ruth and Eunice had stayed in Fairmont and it was beginning to get serious about the war during that time.  Then Papa got sick the last year we stayed there.  Bob and John went out to California and they thought we should come out here for the winter, so we packed up and moved out and stayed until Papa died in 1951... 

A lot has happened during the years.  Now the family is all married and scattered and I’m living and enjoying myself, just traveling place to place.  So that’s the story so far.

       

Both pictures: Thomas D. Stewart's  home and barn in Fischer's Landing Minnesota, Ida Jane Stewart's birthplace. On the back of the pictures was written "this is the barn your Dad helped build" (below) and (right) "and this is the house"

OUR MOTHER

 IDA JANE STEWART MILLS

 Alan (Enos) and Tom Mills  

Tom and I have decided to write the story of our Mother. I wasn't sure of how to start the story until I remembered that she had written part of the story and what she wrote was a perfect beginning. I have what she wrote in her own beautiful handwriting on her birthday April 6. She was at home in Van Nuys, California. The year was 1952.  

"70 years ago, April 6, 1882 I first saw the light of day. I guess I didn't pay much attention to it then but I am sure I did cause quite a disturbance in the home and indeed in the neighborhood. In those days in Fishers Landing, Minnesota it was very primitive. No good roads, no telephones, far from Doctors. I wonder how women ever had the courage to have babies. But in my case my Grandmother came all the way from Ontario, Canada to welcome me.  

My Father and Mother had emigrated to the United States the year before, as did a dozen or more young married folks full of dreams and hopes and most of all, courage and faith to make homes in the new country. They settled along the Marais (a small river which had almost dried up) but was fringed by good timber providing fuel and logs for building those first small homes. These folks depended so much on each other for help that everyone was ready at any emergency to be on hand.  

So it was the night I was born several women and my Grandma all helped thru the ordeal. The two weeks following there were two more babies born in the settlement. These two have passed to their reward some time ago. My mother had six other children all living except one sister.  

I remember an incident that my mother used to tell of the night I was born. It being in the spring, snow had melted and of course no roads and water in all the low places. My father took a team of horses and wagon to go for one of those neighbor women. Ice had formed on the water and was so sharp that it cut the horses legs as they waded thru the water and ice.  

As I grew and was about 4 or 5 I stayed with my Grandmother a great deal. I remember how I used to dislike going back home to stay. I think now it was because I had all the attention there as I had a sister and brother by that time. I always loved to stay at my Grandparents home and always helped and took care of them as long as my Grandma lived.  

Shortly after that I married and began to make plans for my own home which is another chapter. Some day I'll add more to this. It should be interesting.        Ida Stewart Mills."

Well, unfortunately Mama didn't add to her story so we decided that it needed to be written for the benefit of Mills descendants. 

She married Joel Webster Mills in a ceremony in a Presbyterian Church in Mallory, Minnesota on November 22, 1905. They were a handsome couple. Mama made her wedding gown complete with hundreds of sequins all hand sewn. They departed Northern Minnesota for Estherville, Iowa where the Mills family lived. After getting acquainted with the Mills family both Mama and Papa enrolled in courses at the University of Iowa at Ames. Mama took courses in home economics and Papa in engineering. Mama had previously attended a business college in Grand Forks though we are unaware of any commercial application of those learned business skills.

After completing their studies at Ames they settled in Windom, Minnesota where Papa put his engineering knowledge to work and Mama became a full time home maker.  Stewart Alexander, our oldest brother and the first of 9 children was born in November 1906. Thomas Deachman, the youngest arrived on December 5, 1924. She obviously was a busy lady but over the years always had time for others. When her mother died in 1908 she brought her youngest brother and sister, Stanley and Ella, to live with her. After Grandpa Mills died, Grandma who was diabetic came to live with "Jody's” family. She was there until she died.

Mama was a wonderful homemaker. Her cooking and baking were super. I can still taste the big square of warm gingerbread with a crispy sugar crust topped with a generous blob of the best whipped cream ever made. This would have been a quick desert she had whipped up while making a hearty meal of roast pork with plenty of vegetables and always a salad, probably Waldorf with this meal. In fact She was well known for her superb cooking. She published a Cookbook. It was called "THE WAR WINNER COOK BOOK" published in 1916. It's a collection of receipts using dark flour instead of wheat flour. This was a response to a presidential proclamation asking the nation to save wheat, meat, and sugar for export to our armies and allies. The nameplate states "Published under the direction of MRS. J. W. MILLS" along with a Note stating "Every recipe given in this book has been tried out and each one is recommended as being satisfactory. Mrs. Mills has used each one except those credited otherwise. Mrs. Mills reputation for superior cooking is so well known that her recommendation of these recipes puts them beyond the experimental class.”

Her talents didn't stop with cooking. She was a clever seamstress. We all had clothes made by our mother. Often, designs that she created. 

I remember a jacket she made me when I was a freshman in high school. It was a short jacket with a waistband. I heard many compliments at school. Nobody had one like it. That was 1936. It wasn't until the "40s that Eisenhower made the design famous with a similar jacket.

She could redesign or "make over" clothes that we were proud to wear. She developed a reputation among Ruth and Eunice's (our oldest sisters) friends for redoing party dresses. Apparently the girls were thrilled that they could wear a "new" out fit for every function that came along. Tom remembers that she could make a pair of mittens out of a pair of socks in two minutes!

Mama’s personality exuded warmth and love. She had a knack for making each one of us feel that we were special. We all felt her love; Tom's memory of Mama's love goes back to when he was 4 years old when he was having one of his severe ear infections. In those days one didn't run to a doctor for everything. First she tried every proven home remedy, but Tom says the remedy that worked the best was being held in Mama's lap and hearing her soft voice and feeling her tender touch.

This aspect of Mama’s personality, her warmth and love, extended to everyone she came to know, including the nine sons and daughters in law that we kids brought into the family. It didn't stop with family. It was extended to everyone she came in contact with. Neighbors, Church congregations, club members and yes, entire communities. I don't believe there was anyone who disliked Mama. When she died at the age of 84, her friends filled two churches. One in Fairmont, Minnesota where she was living at the time of her death and the second in Van Nuys, California where her body was interred in a crypt at Glen Haven next to Papa.

Her physical strength to reach out to so many came largely from her spiritual strength. She rarely expressed her faith in words but we knew it was very strong. She made sure we were all involved with church. She led by example and at times played the piano or organ for church services.

She was active in the WCTU during Prohibition days because of her fear of the effects of drinking alcohol to excess. This fear was the result of what happened to her father after her mother died. In trying to drown his sorrow he drank or gave away his considerable fortune. One time during the '60s I routed a business trip via Minneapolis so as to connect with Mama to accompany her on a visit to California. We were on a Western Airline "Champagne Flight", which meant all passengers were offered free champagne. To my surprise this former Secretary of the WCTU accepted the offer of free champagne. Shortly thereafter the plane began to bounce around because bad weather. The ride became very rough and kids were screaming. I wasn't sure how this was affecting Mama so I asked if this was bothering her and she quickly said "No, I'll have another!"

Though Mama had varied interests in life it was obvious that her children were her primary concern. She made sure we had wholesome, balanced diets and that we ate healthful foods. "Eat your vegetables so that you will have straight legs when you grow up". She bought a big pressure cooker in 1932 used for cooking and canning vegetables to save vitamins. She was the one that decided what was planted in our large vegetable garden and supervised her crew of boys tending the growing crop.

It was important that we wore clean clothes to school.

Our Mother maintained open lines of communication with each of her kids. You could tell her anything. We all confided in her. I recall an incident when I was in high school. I was with some neighbor boys one night and we decided to stop at a pool hall. We were too young to buy beer but just the idea of being in a beer hall playing pool was somehow appealing. We were late getting home. Next morning Mama questioned why we were so late. I told her where we had been. When I got home from school that day she thanked me for letting her know about our detour to the pool hall. She had been to a ladies club meeting that day and some busy body announced that several boys from our neighborhood had been partying in a local beer joint. The lady was completely deflated when Mama corrected her on the details of the reported party.

She found the occasion to explain to me the importance of communicating with God. God is your friend, she explained. 'You can trust God. He will help you in a time of need; assist you in making decisions and will always be there at times of self doubt. All you need to do is believe in God and you will never be alone.' I have never been alone and have called on Him numerous times during my 80 plus years of life.   

     OUR PARENTS

written by Tom

On this Mothers' Day of 2002, I'm going to express my feelings about the personalities of my parents. Being the youngest of nine, I missed out on the first 20 years of their married life but was the beneficiary of their experience of raising the eight that came before me.

First, my mother, Ida Jane Mills. We always called her Mama when we were growing up. My first memory of Mama's warmth and love came because of a real severe ear infection. I was about four. In those days one didn't run to a doctor for everything and I'm sure she had tried every proven home remedy, but the remedy that worked the best was being held in Mama's lap and hearing her soft voice and feeling her tender touch.

Mama was not only the healer of physical hurts; she was the one we all went to with our personal problems. She always found the time to listen and offer a solution. This seemed to be true not only for our family, but for most everyone she came in contact with. She was the one who cared for her younger brother and sister when Grandma Stewart died. She was the one who cared for Grandma Mills in her last years. While in her youth, she lived with and cared for her Grandpa Ferguson.

I'm sure her physical strength to reach out to all of us came largely from her spiritual strength. She rarely expressed her faith in words but we knew it was very strong. She was very active in church, played the piano for services and was active in the W.C.T.U. (Women's Christian Temperance Union).

Mama was a wonderful homemaker; her cooking and bread making were super. She made it fun to help her. She could make over clothes that we were proud to wear and could make a new pair of mittens out of an old pair of socks in two minutes.

To summarize Mama's love for her family and friends, I find that the 13th chapter of I Corinthians says it well: "Love I patient; love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking; it is not easily angered; it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails."

Now, my father, J. W. Mills. A lot of the things about "Papa", as we called him, happened before my time or memory, but I've heard many stories from him and Mama. Apparently Papa felt his role as a father was to provide a living for the family and be a teacher, especially for the boys—six of them. That's not to say he wasn't a loving father; he surely was, but he was also the primary disciplinarian. I say primary, because Mama knew how to say "no". 

If Papa had a weakness, it was for machinery—early on, working for the railroad, then the engineer's license to operate a steam engine. He owned one of the first motor vehicles in southern Minnesota. He was always finding ways to improve his machinery. On that first motor vehicle, he converted carbide headlights to electric lights. I'm sure he had many new, innovative ideas during the time he was in the drainage business and highway engineer.

Later, as a farmer, he was the first around to farm with tractors. I sometimes wonder if he slept more than four hours a night because he was always developing some new idea to improve farming equipment. Representatives of Case Tractor Co. would come to our place to see what new innovations J. W. Mills had added to the tractors and cultivators.

I'm sure each of the nine children have had different memories of our father. Some of mine include his great patience in teaching us and the praise he gave me for doing a great job. Of course, the more praise I received, the harder I tried to please him. 

1 never heard my folks argue or discuss finances. I'm sure they must have, but not in front of us. I never heard Papa swear, although I remember many occasions at which he may have felt like it, working with us boys. 

In 1951 Papa had a fatal stroke. 1 was in his bedroom shortly after the stroke, and he said to me, "I'm not going to be able to talk much longer; we'd better come up with some method of communicating." 

He was trying to come up with a new idea, right to the end.