Carolyn Louise Millard

Carolyn Louise Millard passed away peacefully in the late morning of January 15, 2022, at the Israel Family Hospice House, 400 South Dakota Avenue, Ames, Iowa, after a very brief stay. She suffered from type II diabetes for many years and finally succumbed to the many complications of the disease.

Carolyn was born on June 27, 1953, in Mobile, Alabama. Her parents were Philip David Brown and Edith Amelia King. As she reached school age, she moved with her parents and older sister, Gayle, to Mason City, Iowa. She attended schools there and graduated from Mason City High in 1971. She had an exceptional singing voice and while attending North Iowa Area Community College (NIACC) she appeared in the three-part musical "The Apple Tree" as Eve. Her interest in theater and the many friends she made created the situation where she met her future husband. She attended a cast party with her friends in Northwood, Iowa. Mark Millard who was involved in theater at the high school in Northwood attended the same party with his friends. From that point on, Carolyn and Mark were inseparable. Carolyn and Mark were married on December 29, 1973, at the First United Methodist Church in Mason City, Iowa. Catholic, Baptist, and Methodist ministers had roles in the ceremony demonstrating her lifelong strong belief in uniting people.

After the wedding, Carolyn moved to Iowa City, Iowa, and worked as a security guard at the University of Iowa Art Museum supporting them while Mark attended the University. She also worked as a bus driver for the county transportation system. After Mark graduated in 1976 from the University of Iowa, they moved to Ames, Iowa where they have resided all these years, except for a brief year in Kelley, Iowa. She again supported Mark while he attended Iowa State University. She worked as a bus driver for a regional bus system and as a dispatcher for campus security.

Mark was employed at the University in Ames after he completed his education in 1980 so Carolyn continued working in the Ames area, supporting the family and incrementally improving her income and management responsibilities with each new job opportunity. She had a daycare business. She worked at Younkers and managed a couple of small stores in the Ames North Grand Mall. She worked as a credit union teller. She was especially good in retail sales in direct customer interactions. She worked extremely hard to find that one item that matched the customer's needs. She got a buzz when everything clicked. She managed departments in stores or entire stores in Story City and Des Moines. She relayed to Mark that her favorite job was working in a department at Von Maur in West Des Moines, Iowa.

Carolyn was a great cook and loved crafts. When Mark first met Carolyn, she was heavily into stitchery, embroidery, and sewing. Wherever they moved, a trunk of cloth came along ready to be sewn into new projects. She picked up these interests from her mother who had a costume shop, both in Mobile and Mason City. Carolyn earned money there in her first job. But her favorite craft was crochet (not knitting). She made cooking and crochet into money-making adventures by preparing chutney, mustards, relishes, pickles, and packaging them in small jars. She made up labels for the products, learning a computer program to do so. The crocheting projects became so numerous that she started selling those at the local farmer's market. A small business called Caro's resulted. She enjoyed gardening, especially in miniature. She often helped Mark with his begonias-under-lights projects that started in their small two-bedroom basement apartment in Iowa City. Music remained an important part of her life. During her last days, her husband marveled when she started singing to her favorite music between periods of long slumbers.

Carolyn was an avid reader and she put this interest to work also. When Mark met her, she was working at the Mason City Public Library as a librarian. When she was young she aspired to have a career as a librarian. She loved a good mystery romance but liked science fiction, fantasy, and pure mysteries. Hercule Poirot was her favorite mystery character. Tolkien's "Lord of the Ring" trilogy and "The Hobbit" were her favorite fantasy series. Asimov's "Foundation" series and Herbert's Dune novels were among her favorite science fiction. She had all the books of Jayne Ann Krentz and her pseudonyms. When she exhausted one interest, she found another in old-time radio programs on archive.org like Philip Marlowe. Her eyesight started to fail her, so she listened to audible books. In the last year, she went again through all the Jayne Ann Krentz, Amanda Quick, and Jayne Castle books. During her latest recoveries from several health setbacks, she would explain to all her care providers what was going on in the latest book she was listening to. A recent discovery, "The Cajun Country Mystery Series" by Jana DeLeon satisfied her interest and pride in being a product of the South. "Swamp Sweets" was the last novel she listened to.

Carolyn loved to travel, but rarely had the time or money to do so. This interest started with her father taking the family on vacation road trips. Her favorite trip was to the island of Kauai in Hawaii when Mark was on a maize pollinating trip. Her sister Gayle joined them, and they went around the island while Mark worked. Trips she reminisced on were a road trip to San Diego, California to visit his brother, David, and wife, Gwen's, family exploring the west along the way. She and Mark drove through the night to the east coast for a grain amaranth conference in Pennsylvania when he was in college in their white and red Mustang. She freaked, when in the middle of the night on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, far between gas stations, the low beams on both sides burned out. High beams worked, but the lights had to be turned off when meeting oncoming traffic for brief moments. She visited Philadelphia and the Liberty Bell while he attended the conference and then they went to New York City to see the sites with their good friend Jamie Leo. They went to a remake of the musical "The King and I" on Broadway. She talked about making a trip to Mobile and the Gulf one last time and would have done so given more time. She wanted an RV but would settle for going in a wheelchair-accessible van Mark bought for her. But she really wanted to go on the train, duplicating a train trip she took when her daughter Jessica was very young to New Orleans.

Carolyn was preceded in death by her parents, her mother-in-law, Clarabeth Millard, and brothers-in-law, Tim Millard and Michael Cahn. She is survived by her children: Aaron Millard of Ames, Iowa, and Jessica Millard of Bailey, Colorado; siblings Gayle Brown Cahn of Alabama, David Brown of California; and her father-in-law, Chester Millard, of Iowa; as well as many brothers and sisters-in-law, cousins and oodles of nieces and nephews. She was so loving to her cats through the years, so mention should be made of her surviving rescue cat, Mikey.

There will be no service at this time, but intimate family celebrations of her life will occur at a later date. She and the family are so grateful for all of the care she received, so gifts should be donations to charities. Following is a list of charities Carolyn would be pleased to be supported.

She had such compassionate care at the Israel Family Hospice House in Ames, Iowa. The family would be pleased for gifts to be directed there. She rescued her favorite cats from animal shelters. If you choose, gifts could be directed to the Animal Rescue League of Iowa. She hoped that someday nobody would have to suffer through the conditions she experienced. To that end, she would favor funding the American Diabetes Association, the National Kidney Foundation, the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, the Institute for Vision Research, the American Tinnitus Association, or the Arthritis Foundation.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions can be provided to the organizations listed below.