Alma Beatrice Lee McMillin Northover, was born January 21, 1910 in Huron, South Dakota to William Napoleon Lee and Bertha Marie Lee. She died on January 11, 2000 at the Corning Hospital at the age of 89 years, 11 months and 21 days.
When Alma was about one month old her family moved to Medora, North Dakota. In 1921, they moved to Shenandoah, Iowa. Later they moved to the Essex area, and then to the Conway, Iowa area. She attended schools in Conway and later Bedford.
On August 4, 1927 she was united in marriage to Gene McMillin to whom she was married for 39 years. Ten children were to come from this union. Her husband Jean [sic] died in December of 1966. She later married Alfred Northover in January, 1972. They were married 22 years until he died in 1994.
Outside a few years in Parnell, Missouri, she lived all of her adult life in the Bedford area. She not only kept very busy raising a house filled with children, but managed to make ends meet by working as a telephone operator, selling Avon, working in the Gambles Store, and cleaning homes and offices. Her children remember very lean times and their mother doing her best to insure their best welfare. This would sometimes mean fixing some food for the children but going without herself. In her later years she made it very clear that she had no desire to go back and relive her past, since it had been so difficult.
She loved going to church, of which she was a member of the First Baptist Church of Bedford, even when she was extremely weak in her later years. She enjoyed playing cards and dominos with a trio of friends every day if possible in her home at the Northside Apartments, where she had lived since 1994. She loved eating out with her friends, or family members if they would stop by. She loved flowers, collecting book marks, key chains, jewelry and doing crossword puzzles.
She was preceded in death by her parents, both husbands, a brother and a sister, and three children: Marvin McMillin, Flo Marie McMillin and Joanne Marlene McMillin, who died at one week of age. She also lost one grandchild and one great grandchild.
Survivors include her children: Helen and husband Bill Coleman of Gravity, Iowa; Wilma and husband Roy McGraw of Essex, Iowa; Norman and wife Anna Mae McMillin of Bedford; mary and husband John Million of Essex, Iowa; Paul and wife Jo of Council Bluffs, Iowa; Linda and husband Tom Anderson of Essex, Iowa; and Ronald McMillin of Bedford. She also leaves a heritage of 25 grandchildren, 47 great grandchildren and 7 great, great grandchildren, with another great grandchild due this month.
Funeral services were held Thursday, January 13, 2000 at Novinger Taylor Funeral Home in Bedford with Pastor Jamie Mogler officiating. Interment at Bedford City Cemetery followed the services.
Bedford Times-Press, Bedford, Iowa Jan 19, 2000