Milford M. ROBERTSON

Enid News and Eagle Enid, Garfield Co., OK

Submitted by: Jo Aguille

A celebration of life service for Milford M. Robertson will be 2 p.m. Monday, June 25, 2012, at First United Methodist Church. Dr. Grayson L. Lucky will officiate. Entombment with military honors will follow in Memorial Park Cemetery Mausoleum under direction of Ladusau-Evans Funeral Home.

Milford was born in the cold of winter, January 2, 1916, on the homestead in Harper County, OK, near Fort Supply, OK, the son of pioneer parents John Howie and Effie Blanch Harris Robertson. At age 3, he and his family moved to Stillwater, where he attended grade school through college, earning a bachelor of science degree in animal husbandry from Oklahoma A&M (OSU) in 1938. A hard worker all of his life, Milford began working at a young age selling the Saturday Evening Post on the college campus and in his neighborhood, working in the stock barns close to where Theta Pond is today and picking potato bugs where the fraternity and sorority houses are on University Ave.

After college graduation, he was assigned to Pawhuska as assistant county supervisor of Farm Security in Osage County and later went to Ellis County as supervisor of U.S. Farm Security Administration (Farmers Home Administration). It was working near Alva he went to weekend dances and met a Northwestern student, Evelyn Meigs, whom he fell in love with and married Jan. 11, 1941, in Cherokee, OK, at a minister's home. Milford and Evelyn moved to Arnett to continue his agriculture work that was abruptly interrupted by the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Evelyn went out to the field to tell him, and he immediately enlisted in the Army Air Corps and was sent to Officer Candidate School in Miami Beach, FL, in January 1943. Evelyn followed "her soldier" to Army Air Force Bases in Florida, Maryland, Louisiana and Alabama. She resided in Enid while Milford served in the Southwest Pacific in New Guinea, Layte, The Philippines and Okinawa. First Lt. Robertson was squad commander of the 437th Aviation Squadron, commissioned a captain before his honorable discharge.

Typical of the great generation, Milford's life was shaped by the Great Depression and WWII. From those times and his family, he learned resilience, kindness, integrity and leadership. Having lived almost a full century, he lived each day to the fullest possible, reading, exercising and making new friends at the Commons Retirement Center. In the past few months, he was honored to go on Oklahoma Honor Flight #2 with his eldest grandson and other Oklahoma WWII veterans, and attended the 80th birthday party of the Pioneer Woman Statue in Ponca City as an honored guest, having been there as a teenager when it was first unveiled. He and Evelyn celebrated their 70th anniversary at a beautiful party in their honor Jan. 11, 2011, before she passed away May 29, 2011.

He loved his family, generations of Garfield County farm families, people (most especially children), his church, reading books, his children's friends and horses.

Milford was a member of First United Methodist Church for over 60 years, a 20-year member of Enid Noon Lion's Club and VFW and a former member of Oklahoma Chapter of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers.

Survivors include two daughters, Carolyn Hopkins and husband Lynn of Ponca City, Kay Boomer and husband Lynn of Shattuck; three grandchildren, Drew Hopkins, Marsh Boomer and wife Jan and Kurt Boomer and wife Ashley; four great-grandchildren, Taylor Andrew Boomer, Susanna Grace Boomer, Seth Robertson Boomer and Grayson Paine Boomer; and numerous nieces and nephews. He is also survived by a faithful and loyal caregiver, Janice Kerr.