Virginia Millman celebrates 100 years of happiness

Nowadays, Virginia West Millman watches the world go by from her Bayard Avenue porch.

At 100 years old, she's seen a lot.

“I wouldn't have changed anything,” she said. “I've had a good life. I'm happy.”

Millman's roots run deep in Delaware. Her maiden name, West, comes directly from Thomas West, also known as Baron De La Warr – Delaware's namesake.

Millman remembers growing up in Gumboro and graduating from Millsboro High School in 1933.

It was back in the day when teachers frowned on anyone who was left-handed. Her uncle and teacher, Otis West, tied her left hand behind her back so she would write with her right hand.

“Uncle Otis taught me to write with my right hand,” she said, adding she still writes right-handed but does everything else with her left.

Following graduation, she met her future husband, Willard Millman, at a party, and the two married in the 1940s, when she was 25.

The couple moved to Georgetown and then to Cockeysville, Md., before moving back to Delaware while Willard worked for the Department of Transportation. During that time, Millman worked at Braun's Clothing Store on Market Street, a high-end clothing store. Still petite, Millman says she enjoyed helping people find fashions that suited them.

She also remembers bringing her favorite cousin to the store while his mother shopped nearby.

“He was my baby boy,” she said. “I'd sit him on a stool.”

When Willard retired from his state job in the 1960s, the couple move to his father's house on Bayard Avenue. In 1966, after a day of helping build a Tabernacle off Rehoboth Avenue in celebration of the town's centennial, Willard came from working and died that night.

Millman didn't let it get her down; she kept on living in their home. She also went back to work.

As a clerk at Moore's Pharmacy, she would assist customers with anything from cosmetics to medicines. The owner of the Wooden Indian, Roy Anderson, liked her so much, he later hired her to work at the Baltimore Avenue gift store until she retired at the ripe old age of 75. Trips to Hawaii, New Orleans, Florida and California have kept her busy over the years.

She is the oldest member of Epworth United Methodist Church and enjoys attending service with her friend and caretaker Jeanette Bonner.

Good food was never in short supply at her home, her cousin James Prettyman said.

“There was always something good around here,” he said. “She'd take a chicken and turn it into something delicious in a minute.”

A nearby tree supplied fruit for beach plum jelly, and she loved to can beets.

She also kept a garden with manicured lawn on her corner lot. Corner cupboards boast her collection of cut glass in one room of her immaculate, picture perfect home where everything is in its place.

Her crocheted blankets line the backs of chairs and help keep her thin frame warm on cool mornings.

On May 16, her family celebrated her birthday a couple of days early.

“She has a small family, but she's been the grand dame of south Rehoboth,” Prettyman said. “She has many friends young and old that come and visit.”