Ozark Profile : Age doesn’t have to mean limitations
Posted on Monday, May 12, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/nwat/News/65114/
One cannot look around Ree Mills house without getting a story. Painted plates adorn the wall. (She made them herself. ) Awards and photos fill bulletin boards and scrapbooks.
On a rainy spring afternoon, Mills sat down and told her story several different ways.
First, with pictures. Every image brings back a memory, such as a photo of the one-room schoolhouse where she was educated or one of her late husband who served in World War I. She can name the people standing next to her in the images and recall why the photo was taken.
Second, through art. Mills said she doesn’t know what her life would be like without her passion for creativity. Painting and poetry are the most visible of her loves, but her favorite is her ability to sing.
“ I’ve been singing ever since I could talk, ” she said with a smile.
Thirdly, Mills’ stor y can be told through family. A mother of three sons, grandmother of seven, great-grandmother of 16, and great-great-grandmother of six, with two more on the way, Mills is a living part of family history.
At 92, the Springdale woman offers the world around her almost a century’s worth of life experience — and she’s still going.
Mills was born in Carroll County in 1916. Her parents eventually moved the family to Madison County, and at the age of 7, Mills found herself in a new place called Springdale. That’s when she first started classes at a one-room school called Crossroads. She flipped to a picture of the land the schoolhouse used to occupy.
“ A friend and I went back to visit it once, ” she said. “ All that’s left is a pile of rubble. ”
Mills started singing when she was at least 5, but one of her favorite memories was singing “ Away in a Manger” at the foot of the crib at a church Christmas pageant. More than 80 years later, she can be heard singing the same hymn at the Springdale Senior Center with the Silver Tones, a local senior gospel group.
Mills said she enjoyed her education but was unable to finish it because at the age of 13 she contracted a “ lifethreatening illness. ”
Mills survived the sickness and went on to marry her husband, Claude. Three sons later, Mills said, she was still singing, mostly in church, and loving every minute of it.
“ I hear songs in my head constantly. I’ve always heard music since I was a kid playing, ” she said. “ I’d sit down and pretend to play piano on the table with my fingers, and I could hear music. My most joyful times were when I was involved with music. ”
Music was her love, but it never distracted her from her life. After her boys were grown, Mills decided she needed something to keep her busy. In 1964 she graduated from beauty school and started a salon in her garage. The beauty degree wasn’t enough, though. In 1973 she received her high school diploma, which she earned in about a year while taking a high school equivalency course.
Mills pointed at a china painting on the wall.
“ I did that, ” she said with a glow. “ I’ve always liked to do different creative things. ”
After leafing through a book of poetry — some published, most garnering an award — she proved her point. Most of the prose was about nature or creation. She said she just wrote about anything that moved her.
“ I can’t sit down and write about something without having it stir my soul, ” she said.
She then went back to looking at artwork.
One wall is filled with paintings and embroidery. Another has a jade elephant side table. She said a neighbor brought it to her from a country in the East. A few abstract paintings that caught the eye gave Mills a solemn look. One of her grandsons painted those pictures. He committed suicide at age 26. A note he left said it was no one’s fault.
“ Sometimes I stare at those pictures and wonder if that’s the turmoil of his mind, ” she said.
Family is a central theme in Mills’ life. Her parents were married in 1889, and her grandfather ran a supply wagon during the Civil War. He was at the Battle of Pea Ridge. She pointed to a black-and-white photo of them while telling their stories.
“ They lived in Canada for a while before moving back to Arkansas, ” she explained.
Her husband, who was almost 20 years older than she, fought in the Great War. Mills said he didn’t talk much about his wartime experience, but after he passed away following a long battle with cancer in 1974 she found some letters.
“ They talked about how he sang for the ‘ King of Brussels, ’” she said. “ I didn’t even know he could sing. ”
Mills ’ son Jim said his dad was a hard worker. He remembers his mother’s voice fondly.
“ She’s always been a singer, ” he said. “ She has an outstanding voice. ”
Jim Mills said he even got talked into learning how to play the piano so he could accompany his mom while she sang. But he didn’t stick with it.
He said that at 92 years young, his mother is truly blessed. She lives by herself and takes care of herself.
“ There are people who are 20 years younger than her that are old and decrepit, ” he said. “ She just keeps on doing things. ”
Mills walked by a photo of her three boys. They mostly take after their father, she said.
A final stop on what seems more like memory highway instead of memory lane was her garden. A gentle rain prevented a full tour, but she said on a nice day her hands are covered in dirt, kindling the beauty from the ground.
She pointed to honeysuckle hanging on the fence.
“ The seed for that plant originally came from one of my mother’s honeysuckles, ” she said.
Later that week, on Mother’s Day, Jim summed up his mother.
“ Even at this stage in life, she’s still going, ” he said. “ It’s awesome. ”