Meriden, N.H. —
After graduation from Jamaica High School on Long Island, N.Y., Millie attended evening classes at New York University while working in a Wall Street brokerage firm. During WWII, she was a Civil Service employee for the US Navy in New York City.
In 1944, she became executive secretary to the CEO at Maxson Food, a pioneer frozen meals company on Long Island, where she met her husband Bill. They started their family in Levittown, N.Y., shortly after the war ended, and later moved to Brightwaters, N.Y. While raising their four children, she was involved in many community activities including the PTA and Cub Scouts. Millie also published a news column and short stories and poems for local newspapers and magazines. In 1971, she and Bill moved to Nissequogue, N.Y., where she enjoyed being a docent in the William Sydney Mount Museum at Stony Brook, lecturing and conducting tours for weekend visitors and busloads of school children. In 1985, Millie and Bill designed and built their retirement home on Lake Winnipesaukee, in Moultonboro, N.H. They spent several years snowbirding between N.H. and their home in Florida.
Millie and Bill moved to Meriden in 2002, joining their daughter Sandy. Together, Millie and Sandy cared for Bill in his later years. Millie became a member of the Meriden Congregational Church where pastors Susan and John Gregory-Davis and members of the church community became dear friends and were a great source of comfort and support after Bill’s passing.
Millie served as Secretary of the Meriden Library Association, and was an active member of the Meriden Library Book Club and the Lebanon Woman’s Club.
Millie loved and was proud of her children and family. Throughout her life, she also treasured new friendships while staying close to many longtime friends across the country. She was an avid reader, loved gardening and watching the local wildlife and birds, was devoted to her dogs, and through meditation practiced “being in harmony with Nature.”
Millie is survived by her loving children, Janet (Mishkin), Laura, Sandy, and David; daughter-in-law Christina (Snyder); grandsons Paul Mishkin and his wife Erica (Mullen), and Doug Mishkin and his wife Alexandra (Hankin); and great-grandson Theodore (Mishkin). Her family will cherish memories of her inquisitive, feisty and playful nature, her enduring optimism, and most of all, her nurturing spirit. They will miss her very, very much.
Contributions in her memory may be made to the Meriden Congregational Church and the Meriden Library. Arrangements for a memorial service will be announced at a later date.