Mrs. Julia Harriet Moss Mills, 1836-1913

Mrs. Julia Harriet (Moss) Mills, 1836-1913, was the wife of Wildman Mills, 1831-1894. A lovely biographical sketch of Julia is found on page 183 of the book PORTRAIT AND BIOGRAPHICAL ALBUM OF SANILAC COUNTY, (Chapman Brothers, 1884). A transcription of this sketch is found below:

Mrs. Julia H. (Moss) Mills was born Oct 2, 1836, at West Burlington, Otsego Co., N. Y. She is the daughter and only surviving child of Truman Moss and was married to Wildman Mills in the village where she was born, Dec. 27, 1858. Five children constitute the issue of this union, three of whom are deceased. They were born in the following order: Elizabeth Moss was born Sept. 28, 1861; Truman Moss was born July 2, 1866, and died Nov. 7 of the same year; Isaac Augustus, born Oct. 4, 1867, died Feb. 10, 1869; Wildman Ambler was born July 2, 1872, and died on the first day of September following; Julia Harriet was born Nov. 7, 1866. The daughters survive. The same fatality which deprived Truman Moss of his sons seems to have pursued the male children of his daughter, all of them dying in infancy.

Mrs. Mills is the lady Bountiful of Croswell. She has been a partaker and sharer in all the joys and griefs of its people. She has rejoiced in their well being and prosperity, and has sorrowed with them when affliction has laid upon them its merciless rod. She has been ever ready with her resources of kindness, of sympathy, of counsel, to aid as occasion has required. The sick and dying have been the grateful recipients of her sympathetic ministrations, and she has guided all her social relations with a solicitude and judgment which has created for her an influence that cannot be portrayed with words. It is best understood in the regrets which her absence from Croswell creates, and in the warmth of the welcome which greets her return.

Wildman Mills died in 1894, and he was buried in Oakland Cemetery in Sandusky, Ohio. Mrs. Julia Mills died in Atlantic City, New Jersey, on January 19, 1913. Her remains were brought to Sandusky, and she was buried next to her husband in the family lot at Oakland Cemetery.

A simple cross adorns the front of the tombstone of Julia Harriet Mills.