Sutter-Yuba County Biographies


This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm



 
FRANK L. MILLS
 
            A progressive and successful orchardist of Northern California is 
Frank L. Mills, at present residing on �The Linda Vista Ranch,� his father�s 
trim ranch of 108 acres,, five miles to the southeast of Marysville.  He was 
born at Pomona, Los Angeles County, on January 3, 1897, the son of James W. and 
Fannie W. (Whitmore) Mills, the former a native of Yuba County, born on the old 
Mills ranch, in the Linda school district, five miles out of Marysville, while 
Mrs. Mills was born in Iowa, and was brought out to California by her parents 
when she was three months old.    Grandfather James S. Mills came out to 
California in 1852, undergoing the hardships of a trip across the plains in a 
prairie schooner with a team of oxen; and his wife came a short time later by 
way of Panama.  Mr. Mills, the grandfather, mined on the Yuba River, among the 
mountains, and later settled on a Yuba County ranch, purchasing a whole section 
of land.  There he took up the growing of vegetables and the raising of grain; 
he lived to be eighty-seven years old, and died on the Yuba County ranch.  
Grandfather Whitmore came to California with his wife and family in the early 
fifties, and first settled in Modoc County, among the Indians.  Later he and his 
family moved to Yuba County, and he once owned a good deal of land where the 
town of Marysville now stands.  He had a mill, and made flour; and later on in 
life he had several business buildings near the corner of E and First Streets.
            James W. Mills, the father of our subject, was a student at the 
University of California, and was appointed one of the first men to direct a 
university experimental station for the scientific study of agriculture and 
horticulture, being sent to Southern California in charge of that responsible 
work.  He came back to Sacramento to be married to Miss Fannie W. Whitmore.  She 
was a graduate of the State Normal School at San Francisco; and after her 
graduation she taught school in that city.  Following their wedding Mr. and Mrs. 
Mills came down to Southern California and established their home three miles 
from Pomona; and during their residence there their two sons were born, Frank 
L., of this review, and Harold, now a student at Berkeley.  In 1910, James Mills 
returned to his home in Yuba County, living on the ranch until 1915, when he 
received through Professor Wickson, of the University of California, an 
appointment as farm adviser of Solano County.
            Frank Mills has been continuously associated with his father on the 
Yuba County ranch, except during the World War, when he served in the United 
States Navy, and during the two years after his discharge from the navy, when he 
attended the Davis Agricultural School, a department of the State University.  
He entered the United States Navy on June 13, 1917, and was sent to Goat Island, 
and soon afterward to Mare Island, where he attended the artificer�s school for 
seven months; and then he was stationed at the Bay Ridge Navy Yard, at Brooklyn, 
N. Y.  From there he was transferred to the U.S.S. Santa Olivia, which was on 
transport duty, and served on the trans-Atlantic cruises.  Later still, he was 
transferred to the U.S. Destroyer Wainwright, the sister ship of the U. S. 
Destroyer Jacob Jones, the torpedo-boat that was sunk off Liverpool in the Irish 
Channel, while working out of her base at Queenstown.  At Philadelphia, after 
having attained to the rating of first-class petty officer, he was discharged 
from the service on September 17, 1919.  Fro the past two years, Mr. Mills has 
been on the ranch, excepting for six months spent in cattle-range work, while 
riding the trail through Oregon and northern Nevada; and he has an interest with 
his father in 108 acres of the original Mills ranch, devoted to the growth of 
apricots, almonds, figs and olives.
            At Stockton, on April 21, 1922, Mr. Mills was married to Miss 
Dorothy Chilberg, a native of Pueblo, Colo., and the daughter of Charles K. and 
Gertrude (Smith) Chilberg, both natives of Illinois.  Mr. Chilberg was a candy 
merchant, and had a chain of candy stores throughout Colorado and Arizona; and 
it thus happened that Mrs. Mills was reared and educated in Colorado.  Mr. and 
Mrs. Mills have one son, named Robert James, who was born on April 5, 1923.  Mr. 
Mills is a member of the fraternities Phi Alpha Iota, at Davis, and the Pi Delta 
Kappa, at Marysville, and belongs to the Elks at Marysville.  He is also a 
member of the Achaean Club of Marysville, and the Yuba-Sutter Post of the 
American Legion.
 
History of Yuba and Sutter Counties, Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, 1924
p. 1159-1160