Sally Sorgen Mills

Sally Sorgen Mills was born in Lima, Ohio on May 18, 1937, and moved at a young age with her family to Manatee County. She was the daughter of Clayton and Marietta Sorgen, and younger sister by eleven years to Tilda Grube, who was instrumental in her raising.

Sally was a beautiful and graceful presence in her world, whip-smart and savvy to the end of her life. Her senior portrait in her Manatee High School yearbook rightfully quipped of her, "Look in her eyes and you’ll see an angel, look a little longer and you’ll see an imp." She had great generosity of spirit and rarely shied from the harder truths. She called them as she saw them.

Sally found meaningful work she cherished as an administrative assistant to both the First Baptist Church of Palmetto and the faith-based Aurora Foundation, but her pride was strongest in her family and church communities. The two most instrumental loves of her life were Jesus Christ and her husband of 62 years, Dr. Virgil Mills.

Sally was a devoted wife and mother, and proud of her role as a true partner to an educator and community leader. She and Virgil retained a rare spark of romance to the end of his life, only nineteen months before hers.

Sally was proud of the homes she made, and took great satisfaction in the creation of beautiful spaces and elegant order. She was an artist - a talented, though nervous painter, and a compelling, thoughtful writer throughout her life. A letter from her was rarely read just once.

Sally was the steward of a living, vibrant, tender, and evolving faith in Jesus Christ. Her life of praise, prayer, service, and teaching blessed a multitude of family members, friends, peers, and students over the years. Sally’s prayer life was practiced and powerful.

Sally is survived by her son and daughter-in-law Steve and Brenda Mills, her daughter and son-in-law Mary Beth and Kevin Jobe, her grandchildren Justis Mills (with wife Lauren Ali), Haven Diaz (with husband Rafael Diaz), and her great-grandchildren Israel and Yara Diaz. She is also survived by her sister-in-law Dot Mills, many nieces and nephews, and friends who have known her, loved her like family, and walked with her to the end.

Sally passed from this earth on Good Friday, April 2, 2021, with her children beside her, after a brutal and heroic battle with colon cancer. In her last months her family enjoyed reading aloud from a journal she had written in her sixties to commemorate the lessons of her life. In it she wrote:

"Sorrow is something else. I can ride it out and always have the sense that His plan

is somehow being worked out. It is very mysterious and I don’t even pretend to

understand how. I just know that sorrow is part of the warp and woof of maturity,

and that if we did not love, we might escape sorrow. It would not be worth it to

miss love."