Millie Swystun May was born October 17, 1918, in Lansing, Michigan. Her parents, Kataryna and Wasyl Swystun, had each immigrated to the United States from the Ukraine a few years before. Millie's early years were spent attending school in Lansing, where she graduated from Central High School in 1935. In later years, she was fond of telling her children that she had "graduated thirty-third in a class of three hundred and thirty-three!" After high school, she went to work as a bookkeeper for R. E. Olds in Lansing.
She met her future husband, Ralph May--an Oklahoma farm boy--while he was attending graduate school in Lansing. They married on March 8, 1941. After a short time in Kalamazoo, Michigan, they moved to Hinsdale, Illinois, where their two sons were born. In 1952, the family moved to Highmore, South Dakota where they lived for a year and a half before finally settling in Valentine, where the youngest child, a girl, was born. Millie lived in the same ranch house a couple miles east of Valentine for 53 years.
During her half-century-plus in Valentine, Millie enjoyed a wide circle of activities and friends. She was at various times a Pink Lady for the hospital, a member of the Sand Painters Art Club, a Sunday school kindergarten teacher and "circle" member at the United Methodist Church, a golfer, a bridge and pitch player, a ceramics painter, a knitter, a dog owner/lover, and a member of a coffee group that met weekly for many years.
But first and foremost, she was a devoted mother to her three children, all of whom survive her: William (Rhonda) May of Shepherdstown, West Virginia; Tom (Lorraine) May of Des Moines, IA; and Mary Ann (Ron) May-Pumphrey of San José, CA.
Millie's beloved grandchildren include: Chad (Amy) Dexter; Clint, Cameron, and Ross May; Whitney May (Andrew Roberts); Kelsey (Adam) May; and Alex May (John Mason).
Millie is also survived by three great-grandchildren, five nieces and a nephew. Her parents, two sisters, and husband preceded her in death.
Millie died on August 30, 2014, in the Arbor Springs nursing facility in Des Moines, IA. She left us with heads full of wonderful memories!
Funeral service for Millie May will be held on Friday, September 5, at 10:00 AM at the Methodist Church in Valentine. Burial followed at Mount Hope Cemetery.