FLORA MILLS

Florie (Flora) Mills fell asleep in death on Saturday, March 16, 2013 after a year-long struggle with congestive heart failure.
She would have been 87 on April 21.
In 1920, Florie’s parents, Ekaterina and Wilhelm Kliner, fled the Bolshevik revolution in Belarus and sailed to Canada aboard the White Star Liner Baltic, a sister ship to the Titanic.
They settled in Fort Frances, Ont. with their children, Tamara and Waldemar, and eventually bought a farm in Miscampbell, where they had three daughters, Elsie, Florie, and Clara.
Florie was a tomboy who could wrestle the boys, ride bareback, and pitch hay. She also could drive anything—a team of horses, a tractor, a Model T Ford, a KB-8 wood truck, and a snowmachine.
She sang like a lark, wrote hundreds of songs, and played electric guitar in the Kliner Orchestra. Florie also worked for three years as a nurse’s aide at La Verendrye Hospital in Fort Frances and considered studying psychiatry.
Florie met Doug Mills at a barn dance, eventually married him, and moved to Oxdrift, Ont., where they lived together for nearly 55 years and raised two children, Kathy and Barry.
Through her years in the community, Florie was a member of the Oxdrift Women’s Institute, a 4-H leader, and a volunteer at Oxdrift Public School and with the Oxdrift Recreation Committee.
Many people still fondly remember the family dances she and Doug organized along with other Oxdrift parents.
Florie had the gifts of laughter and friendship. She knew how to take pleasure in the little things and to her last day, she would gaze in appreciation at the orchid on her kitchen windowsill and took a deep breath of fresh air at her bedroom window morning and night even if it was 40-below.
She was renowned as a gardener, delighting in fresh potatoes, home-canning, and her glorious English flower garden. Her cinnamon buns, date squares, and lemon cake were legendary.
Florie would leave us in stitches recounting stories about her belligerent horse, Blazes, Bubbles the cow, and the antics of the family cat, Shadow. There were other stories of tragedies on the farm, war correspondence with her brother, and personal disappointments that left their mark on her life.
Florie was so proud of her grandson, Mark, who went off to the University of Waterloo to study quantum physics. She also loved to watch her daughter, Kathy, dance and was amazed at her son Barry’s ability to fix anything mechanical.
She stuck with Doug through good and bad, care-giving during the last four years of his life when his dementia made her “that nice lady” who looked after him.
In 1975, Florie was baptized as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, and she was known for her unshakable faith and quiet reliance on God. To the end, her Bible was by her side.
So many are left to remember her life, mourn her passing, and miss her terribly, including daughter, Kathy Bourgon; son, Barry Mills; second “son,” Mike Bourgon; grandson, Mark Bourgon; step-granddaughters, Caitlyn and Natalie Coates-Mills; and sisters-in-law, Shirley Mills and Queenie Mills.
Special to her were Valeda Cousineau, Elsie Hampton, Judy Koski, Irma Mantey, Delores Peters, Doreen and Bob Latimer, Len Pateman, Fran Blair, Isabel MacLean, Judy Bernier, Ellen Ladouceur, Stella Wladyko, Lynda Murphy, Eileen Gardner, Susan Lucyshyn, and the late Shirle Anthony.
This is only a partial list of the many, many people whose lives were touched by this gentle, funny, feisty, pretty woman.
She didn’t want a funeral, so please share your memories with each other.
Online condolences may be offered at www.northridgefuneralhome.com