Author: Keith Millard - son of Frank Millard
​In loving memory of my father (photo on his 90th birthday)
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​This essay is about the life of my father, Frank Millard, the youngest of 5 male children, born on a small farm in northern Ontario in 1919, and moved to a larger and better farm on the Bay of Quinte while he was very young. 

Frank and his four brothers were the essentially unpaid workforce at the growing farm and dairy operation, home life in my father's memories consisted of being controlled by a strict religious and autocratic father who believed in strict adherence to his rules and required hard work under his supervision along with frequent whippings for any perceived shortcomings.  Schooling was similarly dismissed by his father who believed that “too much schooling makes a boy lazy”. 

The 1940s and World War II brought disruption but all the boys were able to start their own lives. And the war also brought exposure to meet new friends, and one of these became my father's future bride. Her father’s farm was considered essential to the war effort and after  they married he was soon released from the Air Force to help provide food for the military. 

Life went on after the war, and agriculture in the Prince Edward County area changed dramatically in the mid 1950s, resulting in many bankruptcies, including Frank & Ruth’s farm. Thanks to his carpentry skills, my father was soon able to get a permanent job in Oshawa, where he lived for the rest of his working life. 
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But this story, while about his life history, is also much more about his gentle soul and spirit.  Everyone who knew him liked and respected him, and his gentle and friendly disposition endeared him to many.

Frank Millard was born on May 14, 1919 on a small farm in northern Ontario, not far from North Bay. The farm was located on the shores of Lake Nipissing, on a small bay called Cache Bay, and located in Caldwell Township.  Life was very challenging here, the soil was poor, and the winters were long and brutal.

Before my father was two, the family moved 400 km south to Hastings County, and after renting a farm for a year or so purchased a large and fertile farm on the shores of the Bay of Quinte just west of Belleville, Ontario. My father remembers moving in to the new farm when he was 3 or 4 years old, and that he played in the yard while his father and older brothers unloaded the wagon.

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For many of today’s younger generations it is impossible to imagine what life was actually like in the decades before they were born, what everyday life was like during the Great Depression and the second World War, or the challenges people faced in everyday life during those years.

By our standards today life for my father and his generation was often very difficult. For my dad and his 4 brothers, their earliest memories had to be centered around unending work on the farm from before sunrise each day and in the dairy with little or no time to play, a father who truly believed education made a boy lazy, and a dour and stern religion that did not allow music or singing in church, banned books from the home other than the Bible, and was even against having a radio in the home.

Despite the difficult home environment my dad had a sweet and gentle personality. Being the youngest of the five boys and admittedly a bit of a “momma’s boy”, perhaps he felt bullied a bit by both his siblings and his father.

Between 1923 and 1925 John Josiah Millard, though he had grown up in the downtown of Montreal, Quebec, now owned a good herd of Holstein milk cows and he soon started a successful dairy, called the Victoria Dairy.

Frank did very well in school, in fact he loved learning. In the 1920s and 1930s education was mandatory to age 15, and many boys (farm boys in particular) had little interest in school subjects like history and geography, and Grade 5 in many rural schools often had a majority of 14 year old boys repeating the grade for the 3rd or 4th time, just putting in time until they turned 15 and could walk away.

In fact, my father has told me that none of his four 4 brothers had completed grade 8, though we don’t know how far they actually progressed. In any event, Frank was outstanding in his school studies and wanted to go on to High School.

It is a fact that secondary education in the 1930s had to be paid for, and John Josiah made it plain that he would not pay for Frank to attend. When Frank’s maiden aunt Susan Millard in Montreal heard of this (we’re not sure how, but she did visit Belleville occasionally in those years), she offered to pay for all of his post elementary education, including through University. John Josiah refused the offer.

Frank Wilfred Millard, January 2008: “My dad, John J. Millard, owned and operated what was known as the Victoria Dairy. I specifically recall as a teenager going with my dad on milk deliveries many times on weekends and during school holidays. He drove the truck and I ran with bottles of milk to various customers, which he would point out to me. Then, after we finished the delivery for a given day, I watched him as he brought his books up-to-date.”

In any event, as the five Millard boys grew up they all were quite anxious to get away from the farm and have a life of their own.  We know that by 1939 Frank's brother Percy owned a successful bread route of his own and got married that same year, we think brother Herbert was an orderly in the hospital and know he got married in 1940, and brother George also got married in 1939 but continued to work on the farm and dairy.  It is possible that in 1940, Herbert, Frank's closest brother, was also helping on the farm, but soon after was working as an orderly in the Belleville hospital. It certainly appears that most of Frank's four brothers had left home by 1940, leaving John Josiah to pretty much run the farm and dairy by himself with son George's help.  

Whether Frank was drafted or enlisted voluntarily, on July 28, 1941 he joined the Canadian Army, and that is where we will leave this segment of the story.
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Frank Millard was either drafted into the military or enlisted of his own accord, in July 1941.  The assumption is that he was drafted (this is being researched), as he was registered as a Conscientious Objector.

After Basic Training in the Army, and due to his non-combat status, Frank was first assigned to be an Officer's Mess attendant (read "waiter").  After several months doing this, an accidental bump from an inebriated office resulted in a hot coffee pot being poured into the officer's lap.

For some undetermined reason, in short order my dad found himself in the RCAF using a skill he already had, namely carpentry work, and the rest of his time in the military was spent helping build new barracks, private married quarters, and aircraft hangars for the Air Force.

These skills paid off, and Frank was soon a Lance Corporal and fully occupied in construction, both in the area (Trenton RCAF, Mountain View RCAF, etc.) as well as being posted to Aylmer, Ontario for several months to help complete construction there.

But he also made new friends as well as staying in touch with old friends. One of these was a young man named Jim McLean who invited my father to join him at evening Young People’s meetings at the Belleville Christian and Missionary Alliance church. He was never so happy as when he discovered this Alliance church, imagine, they actually had music and singing, enthusiastic singing at that! Not the least of this happiness was in meeting a young lady at church named Ruth Kleinsteuber who was boarding in Belleville while attending secretarial school.

Frank Millard and Ruth Kleinsteuber very quickly became friends then soulmates, and soon he and Ruth Kleinsteuber were spending a lot of time with her folks at Maple Rest farm and tourist resort.  Frank also was able to fulfill a childhood dream to travel west and see the Prairies (military members in uniform were able to travel free on CNR trains in coach class - i.e. wooden seats) and in early 1942 he traveled from Belleville as far as the Okanagan and visited his Uncle Percy.

On August 14, 1942 Frank and Ruth were married, at Maple Rest, and they soon settled into a small apartment in Belleville. Due to the nature of his work Frank was able to live “off the base” in his own accommodations.  Ruth's father, Mitchel Kleinsteuber, ran a large pig and turkey raising operation on his Maple Rest Farm with a lot of the output being purchased by the military.

We are not certain of the exact date the Victoria Dairy burned, but believe it may have been  February or March of 1943. My father has said that John Josiah came to their apartment door in the early morning and was totally distraught about the fire, and apparently believed it might have been set.

No one knows all the details of the relationship between John Josiah Millard and Catherine Jane Hamilton, but we know that John Josiah sold the farm very shortly after the fire destroyed the Victoria Dairy, arranged for a bedsit apartment for Jennie, and he moved to the Okanagan where he lived for several years in proximity to his brother Percival Richard Millard.

Sometime after the 1942 marriage of Frank Millard and Ruth Kleinsteuber, a petition to the Canadian military was made requesting his release from the RCAF so he could help supply food to the Army base in Picton and the RCAF base in Trenton.  This release was given on September 12, 1944, Frank became a civilian again, and he and his new family moved to Maple Rest.

And now we will switch gears and talk mostly about Frank and Ruth Millard and their time at Maple Rest and the Maple Rest farm operation.  Fortunately there will be fewer words and more photos.

Life changed dramatically for Frank and Ruth Millard, first of all their marriage in 1942, birth of first son Mitchel Ross Millard in September 1943, release from the Air Force in 1944, building a small temporary "home" for themselves while Frank built a larger permanent home, work on the farm was never ending between the dairy cattle which required milking twice each day, working the fields for feed for the animals, cash crops for the canning factories, and basically no time for anything else.

Coupled with these time consuming demands, working the farm "on shares" meant that Frank did almost all the work, any cash from sales of milk and canning crops had to be split with his father-in-law, and there was no way to pay for hired help or needed farm equipment.  And then, of course, there was Keith, born in April 1946!
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And now we will switch gears and talk mostly about Frank and Ruth Millard and their time at Maple Rest and the Maple Rest farm operation.  Fortunately there will be fewer words and more photos.

Life changed dramatically for Frank and Ruth Millard, first of all their marriage in 1942, birth of first son Mitchel Ross Millard in September 1943, release from the Air Force in 1944, building a small temporary "home" for themselves while Frank built a larger permanent home, work on the farm was never ending between the dairy cattle which required milking twice each day, working the fields for feed for the animals, cash crops for the canning factories, and basically no time for anything else.

Coupled with these time consuming demands, working the farm "on shares" meant that Frank did almost all the work, any cash from sales of milk and canning crops had to be split with his father-in-law, and there was no way to get hired help or needed farm equipment.

A wrenching decision finally had to be made and in 1950 they purchased the farm from Ruth's father, and of course his being German also meant paying full market value even though Ruth was their only child.

Ruth started serving meals to the tourists staying at Maple Rest and she renamed their home as the Shady Nook, and many of the cottagers enjoyed a home cooked meal they did not have to prepare themselves and at a very reasonable cost.

The years 1955 and 1956 brought major challenges for the family;  Frank had built a sizable addition to the house to enable more space for serving meals to tourists, an American canning conglomerate had purchased all the area canning factories then closed them (to enable far more imports from larger canning factories in New York State), Ruth's father decided to put modern refrigerators and gas stoves in all the cottages, and Frank suffered severe burns from a hot roofing tar fire.  These one two punches destroyed the farm and the tourist meals income, and Ruth got a stenographer job at the Army Base in Picton.

In 1958 the end finally came, with a bankruptcy and auction of the farm assets (milk cattle, farm equipment, etc.) and the farm ownership returned to Mitchel Kleinsteuber.  Frank got a carpentry job with an area contractor and Ruth was working at the Army base in Picton.  And that same year, Mitchel Kleinsteuber was trying to harvest some of the farm's remaining grain crops by himself, and at the age of 58 suffered a major heart attack.  And that winter Ruth Millard slipped on ice at Base Picton and broke her back.  What a horrible year!

And this is the place where I tell you that I never saw my father cry once, I never saw him so angry he would yell or swear, and I never saw him play "the victim card" or "poor me" once.  Having said that, in 1953 or 1954 he was cutting hay with the tractor and mower and our wonderful black spaniel Skipper had followed him to the field, he never saw her before she was through the mower blades and with her legs amputated.... I truly believe his heart broke and he wept uncontrollably as he had to put her down and bury her.... but he did not ever cry in front of Ross or myself.

Fortunes changed for the better in 1959 when Frank got a carpentry job building the new Oshawa General Hospital, he stayed in a boarding house and commuted weekly between Oshawa and West Lake.  In early 1960 he was offered a permanent maintenance job at the new hospital, and at Christmas 1960 the family moved to a small rented house in downtown Oshawa.

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Finally and with a decent source of income, Frank Millard and his family were in stable surroundings, albeit 100 miles from Maple Rest and West Lake.  Frank was working as a maintenance carpenter at the Oshawa General Hospital, and in the late summer of 1961 the family moved into a newly constructed home in a new subdivision between Oshawa and Whitby.

Although not large, the new home was comfortable, and Fran was reunited with his brother Cliff who also lived in Oshawa and drove a city bus.  Ross graduated from high school in 1962, had a job working at Canadian Tire, and bought his first car, a 1955 Dodge.  Keith spent the summers of 1962 and 1963 at Maple Rest helping with the tourist resort and new campground, then in 1964 spent most spring and summer weekends at West Lake helping his grandfather complete the new Pleasant Grove travel trailer park.

Also in 1964 Frank and Ruth Millard and Cliff and Ruth Millard took a car vacation to the East Coast (Yup, they also slept in the car!) but had a reasonably good time.  In 1964 Keith started working for General Motors in the Data Processing department, and in 1966 took his parents and Ross to the East Coast again  and they stayed in travel hotels.  One interesting thing about that vacation, the Ferry Service went on strike and they had to use a small ferry from Digby, NS to Bar Harbor, Maine and return to Ontario through New Hampshire and Vermont.

In 1967 Keith and Ross arranged a 25th Wedding Anniversary for Frank and Ruth at the Royal Hotel in Picton, Ontario, sadly only one photo from that event remains.  In 1967 and 1968 Ruth and Frank were able to visit her parents in Largo, Florida for a winter vacation, and the photo below shows the arrival and luggage pickup area at the Tampa International Airport!

The next year proved to be somewhat momentous, Keith and his galpal Diane had decided to get married in the fall of 1969, then Ross and his girlfriend Ruth Schubert decided to get married as well, and they ended up having a July 5th double wedding at the church that Ruth and Frank attended in Oshawa.

Frank and Ruth continued to take winter vacations to her parents place in Largo, Florida, and both Keith and Ross soon had families of their own.  By summer of 1975 both Ross and Keith were working in Computer Systems for Revenue Canada CAE in Ottawa, though Ross moved to British Columbia soon after.

Frank had a part time job selling extended car insurance policies (towing and small repairs, that kind of thing), and to our surprise (and his too!) he was very successful at it.  His pleasant demeanor, personality, and gentle sense of humor made him a person that everyone liked.

For the most part, these two decades were happy ones for all concerned.
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We are finally at the 1980s, and Frank Millard's career at the Oshawa Board of Education is soon coming to an end.  Frank and Ruth sold their home of 20 years on Thickson Road and moved into a very nice apartment in Whitby.

Frank's father-in-law Mitchel Kleinsteuber passed away in 1980 and Ruth's mother, Florence, came to live with them, but within 18 months or so needed the care of a Long Term Care facility. I believe my father Frank retired in 1982.

Their own families had grown up, Ross and Ruth were living in Langley, BC, and Keith and Diane were living in Ottawa, Canada.  Florence passed away in 1983, for several years Frank and Ruth spent their summers at Mitchel and Florence's cottage at West Lake (which had been their last home) and the winters at Mitchel and Florence's mobile home at Lake Placid Park in Largo, Florida.

In 1988 they sold the cottage at West Lake and moved to a church based retirement village in Langley, BC.  They enjoyed living there, but by 2005 they needed a greater level of care and moved to a church based Assisted Living facility in Ottawa, Ontario.

After a serious operation in May of 2006 Ruth needed a greater level of care and eventually in 2007 they were both together again at Prince of Wales Manor in Barrhaven, a suburb of Ottawa.  They were still living here in May of 2009 when we were all able to celebrate Frank's 90th Birthday.

In October they were able to celebrate my mother's 87th birthday together, but Frank's congestive heart failure condition was gradually becoming more acute.  My last photo of my father was taken on November 19th, 2009 at their suite at Prince of Wales Manor.  In mid  December he had to be hospitalized, and he passed away on January 22nd, 2010.

In accordance their wishes, Frank Millard was cremated and a memorial service was held at the West Lake Church of Christ cemetery on June 17th, 2010 when his urn was interred in their family plot.

A final reiteration of my father's life... he never complained, and he kept his sense of humor and pleasant attitude even while hospitalized and right until he slipped into a coma a couple of days before his death.

Postscript:  As Ruth Millard's dementia progressed she required Long Term Care accommodation at the New Orchard Lodge facility in Ottawa, and she received loving and attentive care right up until she gently passed into that good night just a few days short of her 96th birthday on September 23, 2018.

Her urn was interred in their plot beside Frank's on October 12th, 2018.  They are together again, and at Ruth's beloved West Lake and Sandbanks, and less than a quarter mile from Maple Rest where she grew up, and where she and Frank lived for almost 20 years.

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Quick Link:  mtDNA of a Mystery Ancestor