Mildred Elizabeth Innocent's Obituary
Mildred (Milly) E. Innocent Died of heart failure Tuesday, May 26, 2009, at her home in Dallas Memorial service to be held at 3:00 p.m. on Saturday, May 30, in the Wildwood Chapel at Restland Memorial Park, Greenville Avenue at Walnut Please direct donations to the Skillman Church of Christ Youth Ministry Beloved mother, grandmother, great-grandmother. Active member of the Skillman Church of Christ, loyal servant of her country, admired banking colleague, friend of many who will miss her dearly. A true Christian always in faith and deed. Mildred Elizabeth McGill was born on October 10, 1915, in the West Mountain community of Upshur County, among the piney woods of East Texas. Milly and her family faced hardship during her youth. Her father, Charles McGill, died in an industrial accident in the Spindletop oil field in the mid-1920’s, forcing Milly, her mother Betty, brother Eslie and half-brother Clayton Willeford to scratch out a living from the red dirt by themselves through the rest of that decade and the years of the Great Depression. In the mid-1930’s, Milly came to Dallas, where she studied to improve her life by becoming a secretary. After working briefly in Dallas, she returned to a job in Gladewater State Bank in East Texas, where she learned about banking as only a small operation could teach her. She said she did everything there was to do in the bank, right down to sweeping out the vault. Milly’s brother Clayton soon enlisted her in local political campaigns. Because of her diligent campaign efforts on behalf of the local Democratic Party, Milly was invited by the newly elected U.S. Congressional Representative, Lindley Beckworth, to join his staff in Washington, D.C. After serving as a staff member during the 1938-39 term, she was promoted to be Beckworth’s secretary of the district constituency during 1940-41. Leaving Washington after the latter term, she worked for the duration of World War II for the Federal Aviation Administration in Fort Worth, then at the end of the war returned to the Gladewater bank. In 1947, Milly joined the U.S. State Department and was assigned to Baghdad, Iraq, where she served as the ambassador’s secretary. In later years, she did not recall Baghdad as the war-torn city familiar in television reports today, and still less as an exotic locale from the Tales of the Arabian Nights. Instead, she remembered a hot, mud-brick town with goats and beggars wandering dusty streets that were periodically flooded by overflow from the Tigris River. It was a hardship post, but fortunately she found a distraction. His name was James (Jim) Innocent, an Englishman in charge of an international trading company based in Baghdad. However, before anything lasting could develop between the two of them, Milly received a premier reassignment with the State Department in Brussels, Belgium. As soon as circumstances allowed, Jim took an extensive leave from his business interests to return to London. From the British capital he then launched a campaign across the English Channel in order to win Milly’s affections. Eventually he succeeded, so that in 1950 Milly resigned from the State Department to marry Jim in London and return with him to Baghdad. There their first child, Elizabeth Anne, was born. In the mid-1950’s, Milly and Jim traveled to visit her family in Texas, where she discovered that she was pregnant with their second child, James Clayton. Deciding to remain in Texas, the couple moved to Dallas in 1956 for treatment of their daughter Anne, who was diagnosed with kidney cancer that year and later died from the disease. Despite the tremendous pain this caused her, along with her mother’s death in the same year, Milly did not waver in her faith or her courage, but continued working hard to create a good life for her family. In a few years, she and Jim were blessed with the birth of a second daughter, Jill Margaret. By the early 1960’s, career-minded Milly was ready to return to work. She then began the job that was to carry her to retirement in the Fair Park National Bank of Dallas, subsequently part of the Republic Bank system. During her tenure as executive secretary, Milly served three of the bank’s leaders, each of whom held different combinations of the offices of president, CEO and chairman. She was instrumental in the bank’s success, so that some of the important customers were heard to remark that “Milly came with the charter.” In her home and social life, too, Milly was highly regarded. Jim’s career in Dallas, after initial years of success, hit a rough patch in the early 1960s, and it was Milly who sustained her family through the difficult years that followed. Throughout this time, in good years and in bad, she remained a faithful member of her church. There, and among her colleagues in the bank, she had friends and was widely appreciated not only for her hard work and self-sacrifice, but also for her humor, intelligence and friendliness. As the 1970’s drew to a close, Milly saw her son and daughter complete college, then a rapid sequence of changes at the beginning of the next decade as both children married and the first grandchild was born. Sadly, Jim became ill with cancer during those years, and Milly chose to retire from her job in order to be with him and care for him before his death in 1981. During later years, she traveled extensively with her family and friends, and she was cheered by the arrival of more grandchildren and by close relationships with her children and their spouses. Despite living to a great age, Milly maintained an interest in the world and a sympathy with those who seek to improve it. A weak heart that required a pacemaker, then a broken hip that was pinned, both slowed her down, but she continued to be active and to enjoy life. The end, when it came, was quick and without much pain. Milly is survived by her daughter Jill Lydick, Jill’s husband Andy, and their children Hilary, Clayton and Collin; also by her son James (Jim), his former wife Rebecca, their son Charles (Chuck) and daughter Kathryn (Kate), Kate’s husband Travis Steinbring, and their daughter Kaylee. Milly will be missed by them and by all who knew her.
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