Mildred Goers Sampson died on February 4, 2011. “Milly” was born May 27, 1922, to Emil and Edith Goers, in Saskatchewan, then raised in Chicago. After graduating from Englewood High School she became a private secretary for a Westinghouse executive until enlisting in the Women’s Army Corps in 1943. She served in General MacArthur’s “Island hopping campaign” in Australia, New Guinea, and the Philippines.
After the war, Milly was married to Reynold Vake Sampson for 51 years, until his death in 1997.
The Sampsons operated West Lane Plumbing in Florence for 27 years. In 1960, she ran for the school board against an all male slate of candidates, saying “The women should be represented." She drew more votes than any other candidate, and served a total of 10 years.
Milly was a strong advocate of equal rights in schools. She saw to it that mechanical drawing classes were opened to girls, a trophy case was acquired for girls’ trophies, and overtime was paid for the girls’ PE teacher’s extra-curricular activities— just as the male coaches were paid. When a teacher wore a black arm band after the Kent State shootings in 1970, “It’s her First Amendment right,” Milly told the School Board. “I didn’t know for sure which amendment it was, but I figured they didn’t know either,” she confessed later.
When Milly learned that the football coach had planned a luau and invited only the male members of the Board, she stole the luau pig one night, from the grocery store meat locker, using a key from the grocer’s wife. She left a ransom note, and once invited, applied lipstick to the pig and gave it back.
She was adventurous, humorous and opinionated, and there is no way her life can be boiled down to three words like this.
Milly is survived by four children, Susan Sampson Horn, Sandra Sampson Jones, Mark, and Tina Sampson; ten grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.
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