Mildred Elizabeth Newcomb

Mildred Elizabeth Newcomb died March 18, 2023, aged 108. “Millie,” as her friends knew her, was born July 20, 1914, in Painesville, Ohio, to Frederick E. Newcomb and Mina (Finlaw) Newcomb. From her earliest days growing up in Painesville, she felt a “hunger,” as she put it, for knowledge. This hunger led her to a lifelong love of literature and scholarship.

Her family was fortunate enough to have avoided the worst of the widespread poverty during the Great Depression, but Millie had to go to work out of high school at various jobs, spending a number of years at a Woolworth store. Her hunger unsatisfied, she became acquainted with people who encouraged her to seek a higher education and found a benefactor in Burleigh E. Cartmell, the Treasurer of Ohio Wesleyan University (OWU), who saw potential in her and helped her secure a scholarship to attend Ohio Wesleyan in Delaware, Ohio. Millie found a feast to feed her hunger at OWU, graduating in 1941 and continuing her education at Indiana University, where she earned a Master of Arts in English literature.

Millie returned to OWU in various student personnel roles, but the hunger for English literature always remained. Through her student personnel years she taught one English course per term, eventually becoming a full-time tenured Professor of English. Unsatisfied with her Master’s degree, she began doctoral studies at North Carolina University during a sabbatical and transferred her studies to The Ohio State University where she received her Ph. D. in Victorian English Literature in 1967.

Ultimately, she gained tenure as a Full Professor and held some important positions at OWU, including Chair of the Faculty Personnel Committee, the body that approves tenure for faculty members. In 1976 she agreed to take the role of Chair of the English Department, a position she held until her retirement in 1979, when she was honored with the Bishop Herbert Welch Meritorious Teaching Award.

However, Millie was not ready to retire. The policy then in force at OWU required retirement at age 65, but to continue her academic career she applied for and received a grant from the Mellon Foundation to create a program of faculty development which involved faculty throughout the OWU community in discussion, writings, and other activities, one of which was presentation by faculty members of a play she wrote for the program, An Evening With Faust. At this time she was also encouraged to rework her doctoral dissertation for publication as a graduate-level text. The Imagined World of Charles Dickens was published by the Ohio State University Press in 1989.

After her adopted sister, Doctor Jeannette Stanton (Jan) retired, Millie left her academic work at OWU to devote her time to pursuing a number of hobbies, which included creating landscapes for her miniature train sets, cooking, and baking. The Christmas season found her baking many varieties of cookies, filling numerous tins to give to friends and family. But there was always literature. She continued to read and began to write poems, stories, and a novel or two.

Preceded in death by her partner Jan, Millie moved to First Community Village, a retirement community in Upper Arlington, Ohio, where she created a series of discussion groups around various topics in English literature, including close readings of several novels by Charles Dickens, critical approaches to literature, poetry, and more.

A Christian all her life, Millie found spiritual sustenance in various philosophers, especially Immanuel Kant and his “categorical imperative,” in Buddhist teaching, and in the Tao Te Ching, which she recognized as her “philosophical home” at age 100.

Millie was preceded in death by her parents, Mina L. (Finlaw) Newcomb and Frederick E. Newcomb, as well as her brother Frederick N. Newcomb, her sister Jan Stanton and many of her peers and colleagues. She will be remembered fondly by many students still living, as well as some of the younger faculty with whom she shared collegial time. And she will be held dearly in the hearts and minds of her family who remain: three nephews, David (Cynthia) Newcomb and their sons Frederick Newcomb and Michael J. (Miranda) Newcomb; Christopher Newcomb and his sons Ian (Carrie) Newcomb and Cody Newcomb; Michael S. Newcomb and his daughters Elizabeth and Sarah; second great nieces Neveah, Kaylah, Julie, and Maeve; and second great nephews David, Zavier, and Gavin.

A memorial service will be held in the chapel at First Community Village in Upper Arlington, Ohio, on Saturday, April 15. In lieu of flowers, Millie would have been honored to know that donations were made to Ohio Wesleyan University, 61 South Sandusky Street, Delaware, Ohio, 43015 or online at owu.edu/give in memory of Mildred Newcomb.