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Townsend, Mildred Lavern Kier

TOWNSEND, KIER, BAKER, STARRY, SEARS

Posted By: Ken Baker (email)
Date: 11/12/2019 at 11:57:20

Sanders County Ledger, January 7, 1999, Montana

Mildred Lavern Townsend

BATON ROUGE, La. - Mildred Lavern Townsend died December 29, 1998 of respiratory failure at Our Lady of the Lake Hospital in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She had resided with her son, John W. Townsend III, since 1981 at 2073 Highway 200 in Trout Creek, Montana following her retirement. She and John had recently moved to Watson, Louisiana.

A memorial service will be held Sunday, Jan. 10 at 2 p.m. at the Cabinet Mountain Bible Church on Highway 200 east of Trout Creek.

Born March 5, 1910 at Leon, Iowa to Vernon and Mary A. (Sears) Kier, Mildred was raised by her mother and stepfather, John F. Baker following her father's death. She married John W. Townsend II April 19, 1941.

She was preceded in death by her parents, stepfather and husband.

She is survived by her son, John W. Townsend III and grandson John Townsend IV, of San Luis Obispo, Calif.; cousin Irene Starry of Sun City, Calif. (who was raised as Mildred's sister); cousins, nieces and nephews and many friends.

Mildred received a degree in zoology from the University of Iowa and then moved to Culver City, Calif. in 1934 where she was later a home economist for Southern California Gas Company in San Diego and then in San Bernadino. In 1951, she became employed by the University of California Cooperative Extension Service at Hanford and subsequently transferred with the University to San Luis Obispo where she took over the 4-H program and became president of the State Home Advisors. During her tenure, she published many books and papers on nutrition and had a daily radio program dealing with nutrition and home economics issues. While there, she was an elder with the Presbyterian Church and a member of Altrusa, a service organization.

After retiring from the university system, she went to work for the California Economic Council, setting up the senior nutrition program, establishing kitchens to feed large numbers of people every day at seven different sites. She also took her home economics program into homes of migrant workers teaching groups and individuals how to make the most of their food dollars and how to use the commodities they were given from the federal government.

After moving to Montana, Mildred directed the Women, Infant, and Children (WIC) Program in Sanders County.

What is most amazing about Mildred is the fact that she had accomplished all this after having contracted polio in the 1940s. She and son John, who was three at the time, had the illness. Mildred was in an iron lung in one hospital while he was receving care in another.

Mildred attended the Noxon United Methodist Church when she first moved to Montana but in recent years attended the Cabinet Mountain Bible Church at Trout Creek. For years, she made her home available for Bible studies and carried Christ in her heart. She was well respected in the community.

Mildred's cremains will be inured next to her mother's grave in San Luis Obispo.


 

Decatur Obituaries maintained by Constance McDaniel Hall.
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