MARY LOUISE SANSBURY MILLS
1863 - 1930
The Faculty of Vassar College wishes to record its
sense of loss in the death of Mary Louise Sansbury,
wife of Professor Herbert E. Mills, which occurred
after a very brief illness on March 1, 1930. She
was born in Palmyra, New York, and educated in
Syracuse at the Keble School. She had been closely
connected with the college socially since coming here
in 1890 as a bride; living for two years in Main
Building before establishing their home on Academy
Street in the city.
Her interest in student life was shown in the generous
hospitality of their home and also in frequent par-
ticipation in more formal affairs on the campus. The
Penn School on St. Helena Island is essentially a
Vassar enterprise. Mrs. Mills was Treasurer of its
local sustaining club for many years, and in recent
years a Trustee: visiting the school personally once,
and planning for later visits.
She initiated, organized, and supervised the Eastman
Park Garden School, in which some two hundred children
had individual gardens, and were regularly taught much
of gardening, nature study and related matters. For
fourteen years she spent much of her time in this
garden, and finally reluctantly gave up this work, a
severe tax on strength and time.
As indicating Mrs. Mills‘ heredity, we note that her
paternal grandfather, Ralph Sansbury, was for many
years Steward (i.e. General Manager and Comptroller)
of Princeton College.
These facts are less significant than her personality,
in which her friends have rightly mentioned her con-
stant thoughtfulness and her creative sense of beauty.
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