Geraldine Emliy Mills. Mihalic

Geraldine Emily Mills Mihalic, 95, of Missoula, passed away at home on Monday, April 27, 2015, of natural causes, with family near and holding her daughter's hand.

Gerry was born in Gordon, Nebraska, to Naomi Russell Mills and David Henry Mills, both of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. She grew up on Pine Ridge with her Mills, Russell, Allen and Adams relatives enjoying a carefree childhood from Wanblee to Porcupine Butte until losing her mother when she was seven. She attended Holy Rosary Mission boarding school with her older brother Ben and took on a caregiver role to her younger siblings, Roy and Patricia that knitted them all together.

She was given her great-grandmother's name, Deer Woman by her father and grandfather and attended Pine Ridge High School, playing girls basketball and graduating in 1937. While her older brother, Ben stayed on the family ranch at Porcupine Butte, she and her siblings went with their Dad to New Mexico when he transferred to the Mescalero Agency. She was a fire dispatcher for the Indian Service one summer before going to work at the Albuquerque Indian School while attending business college.

In the spring of 1943 she enlisted in the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC, later activated as the Woman's Army Corps) entering active duty at Ft. Bliss, with basic training at Camp Ruston, Louisiana, and advanced training at Ft. Oglethorpe, Georgia. She had specialized training at Ft. Devins before her 6670th WAC HQ Company shipped out in October from Camp Patrick Henry on the Empress of Scotland, a former luxury liner, going first to Casablanca and later to Algiers. The 6670th WAC was in support of air operations for the 12th Army Air Force Group.

Then PFC Mills was a cryptographic teletype operator working with the Signal Corps men who engaged in the classified operations that included establishment of RADAR facilities in North Africa and Italy. One of these was a young Corporal, John Mihalic. As the war progressed, in early 1944 her unit moved to Naples, Italy where she endured twice-nightly air raids for six months and had their billets "bombed out."

When questioned about her war experiences she always modestly downplayed her contribution. "We just supported the boys," she would always answer. Nonetheless, Gerry's stories of women in war were engaging and funny as she told of small things, sitting on their helmets in the bomb shelter doing each others' hair, playing basketball on her company's team, drinking "gin-juice" and, because of her assignment learning of and secretly celebrating VE Day a day early, then celebrating again officially the next day.

Later, when she was one of three women on the second Big Sky Honor Flight and spoke with the other World War II vets she was immediately accepted as a comrade-in-arms: "We all stood on the same ground," one veteran told her.

When the war ended she flew back home, mustering out at Ft. Sam Houston and returning to Albuquerque, where John Mihalic soon joined her. They married Jan. 4, 1946, a marriage that would last 65 years. John returned to active duty with the air force in Illinois where he introduced Gerry to the St. Louis Cardinals, a team she avidly supported until her death. As a result of John's air force career Gerry became an Air Force Wife, the "toughest job in the Air Force."

She and John and then children, David and Jonna, were stationed at various air force bases in Illinois, Texas, England and back in Illinois before retiring to Mascoutah, Illinois. When both their children and all their grandchildren made their homes in Montana, they moved to Missoula in 2007.

Known to her four grandchildren and all their friends as "Unci," a Lakota word meaning "honored (female) elder," or Grandmother, Gerry was a gentle, loving and caring person, loving wife and wonderful mother. In retirement she and John were members of and volunteered at the Mascoutah VFW Post 7682 and cheered on her grandchildren always treating their friends as if they were her own.

John died before her in 2011. Gerry is survived by her younger sister, Patricia Morrow of Jacksonville, Florida; son David (Jeri) of Missoula; daughter Jonna Mihalic-Hoag (Davy) of Kalispell; grandchildren, Emily Mihalic, Nick Mihalic, Katie Hoag and Peter Hoag; several beloved nieces and nephews, first cousins and other Mills and Allen family members she got to know at reunions.

A funeral mass will be celebrated May 14 at 10 a.m. at St. Anthony Catholic Church with interment following with military honors at 11 a.m. at the Western Montana State Veterans Cemetery, Fr. Michael Drury and Fr. George Dumais, S.J, as concelebrants.

"TNX CUL 88"
Read Geraldine Mihalic's Obituary and Guestbook on www.missoulafuneralhomes.com.