Her parents were Arthur Chase Gage of Worcester, Massachusetts and Mabel Nyren Gage of Orrefors, Sweden.
Her father worked for the Otis Elevator Company and her mother was a Licensed Massage Therapist.
She grew up in Ansley Park and after her father passed away in June of 1940 her mother bought a house way out in the country on West Paces Ferry Road a block off Piedmont Road. Mia grew up in Buckhead, attended North Fulton High School and later went on to study at Agnes Scott College in Decatur. In 1945 she met a US Navy sailor who was studying Electrical Engineering at Georgia Tech and she must have been impressed by his ardor (we have a disorderly conduct – disturbing the peace citation written by the Decatur Police to one John Francis (Jack) Walter on the Agnes Scott campus). They were married on January 25th, 1947 in Decatur, Georgia after he completed his service in the United States Navy they moved to Columbia, SC while he earned his Bachelor Degree in Electrical Engineering at the University of South Carolina in 1948. Then they moved to Philadelphia, PA where Jack had earned a job with the Philadelphia Electric Company. There they met her lifelong friend Pat Reilly who became the godmother of their first child. Jack went back to school at the University of Pennsylvania and earned a Masters in Electrical Engineering then in 1951 took a job with RCA and moved to Houston, Texas in October 1951. Their first child John Howard (Jack) Walter was born the next month in November 1951. A year later they moved to Winston Salem, NC and then in October 1953 to Charlotte, NC where their second child Christina Mia Walter was born in November of 1954.
In November of 1955 they moved back to Columbia, SC where Jack had taken a job as a District Sales Manager for the failing Studebaker Packard Corporation and they moved back to Atlanta in July 1956 where Jack had secured an engineering job with the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation. They lived for seven years on Ashford Road in Brookhaven and daughter Lisa came along in 1958. We moved to Woodvale Drive in Sandy Springs in June of 1963. These are the years that we remember as a happy time in their lives with countless friends and family that were working and playing together. The love of her life passed away in November of 1983. She continued to live in this big 5 bedroom house until 1986 when she met and married Guy Rhoad, a widower that the entire family approved of wholeheartedly. Unfortunately he passed away from diabetes only two years later - we all still miss him tremendously. She bought a home in Roswell and soldiered on.
Mia really came alive during these years as a hostess, mother, patron of the arts, and a spectacular cook. Her secret weapon was a Julia Childs cookbook and their home was a haven for the neighborhood kids who they welcomed with open arms and made everyone feel at home. Many of our friends would confide to us that they wished their mothers could cook like ours. Our house was a happy place whose center was our mother. She also had her own decorating business, did flower arrangements, ran a Linen Shop and worked at Sterns on West Paces Ferry Road. She volunteered at the Atlanta History Center, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, and Big Arts on Sanibel Island, FL.
She became a willing partner in dad’s attempts to make a killing in real estate by buying rental houses and fixing them up, sometimes this worked, sometimes it didn’t like the house in Brookhaven that was supposed to be three lots away from the Brookhaven Marta station. After spending a small fortune renovating the place (twice - after one tenant absolutely wrecked the place by turning the front bedroom into an aviary and the garden shed into pigeon coop – we had to burn that down) Marta decided to expand the parking lot and took the house with a lowball offer backed by eminent domain. The tenants made more money from Marta than they did on the house.
Mia did not bat an eye at these adventures – her adventurous spirit was one of her best attributes. She loved to travel and seemed unfazed by situations that would send most women running back to their homes to lock the door behind them. When dad wanted to go somewhere her response was usually “when can we leave”. “Do you want to hook a borrowed tent camper to the back of the family Ford station wagon, load three kids in the back of the car and go on a three week camping trip out west? Sure – where are we going?” would be her answer. She traveled extensively in her life, to Europe, China, Egypt, Japan, Central America, Alaska, Southeast Asia and around the tip of Cape Horn by Cruise ship. One of her most epic adventures was the one she undertook with Jack Sr, Jack Jr, her daughter Lisa and a family friend to dad’s 30th High School reunion in the Panama Canal Zone in 1974.
Dad had graduated from Balboa High School in the Canal Zone in 1944 and rather than do something boring like fly down there for the reunion he elected to buy a $600 1966 Buick Electra 225 and drive it to Panama. The route took us through Texas, Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama with many breakdowns along the way. Mom took it all in stride, including when the driveshaft fell out of the Buick 25 miles down a dirt road in Costa Rica. She loved visiting her uncles and aunts in Sweden and traveling to new places around the world.
She bought a cottage on Sanibel Island after selling the last of the rental houses and spent many happy winters there until the effects of dementia started to make it impossible for her to live alone. Mia was very content in her little Sanibel cottage.
When dad was introduced to the reigning Miss America at a conference out in California he was unimpressed. When one of his friends asked him about meeting Miss America he answered that his wife was much prettier than she was. Mia was always elegant, poised, well-mannered and loved – a true southern lady.
Later in life she reconnected with her high school boyfriend Bob Burns and a short marriage ensued. Their mutual love of travel provided a bond that kept them together for a while but she decided that he wasn’t the man she wanted and divorced him and returned to her beloved Sanibel Island. She survived hurricanes, three marriages, three children and a lot of exciting adventures but was finally conquered by dementia. She remained poised and polite to the end. The staff at the nursing home all spoke highly of her and the care they provided was proof of their devotion.
She will be sorely missed by her friends and family.
Mia is survived by her three children – Jack, Christina and Lisa
Her four grandchildren – Mia, Caleb, Anna and Katie
And her four great- grandchildren – Angelica, Collin, Eliana and Bruce
Her funeral services will be held at the H.M. Patterson and Son Canton Hill Chapel at 1157 Old Canton Rd NE, Marietta GA 30068 on Saturday, August 3rd at 12:00 noon.
Burial at Kennesaw Memorial Park on Hwy 120 west of Marietta will follow the services.
The family will be receiving visitors on Friday afternoon from 4:00-7:00 PM at the funeral home.
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