photos icon

HIghlights

  • service-guarantee

    100% Service Guarantee
  • flexible-event-space

    Flexible event space

  • celebration-of-life-center

    Celebration of Life center

  • veterans-cemetery-section

    Veterans cemetery section

  • flexible-chapel-space

    Flexible chapel space

Limited-time savings

Pre-plan today to protect the people you love and receive up to 15% off prepaid cemetery and cremation property. Act today.

VIEW OFFER DETAILS

About

Since 1901, Mills & Mills Funeral Home in Tumwater, Washington, has served the community with a full array of funeral and memorial services. For more than a century, we have upheld a tradition of providing personal and compassionate funeral care to Olympia-area families. 

Mills & Mills Memorial Park is a peaceful final resting place for the people of Tumwater and the surrounding area. It's designed to be a serene and calming location that features the natural beauty of Washington. Working together, the funeral home and cemetery allow you to handle everything from funerals and memorial services to burials and memorial markers.

 

 

Your dedicated funeral provider

We understand that losing a loved one is an emotional and difficult experience. Mills & Mills Funeral Home is a warm, welcoming environment with services designed to help you through one of the most personal and challenging stages of life.

Our welcoming facility offers a full kitchen, spacious foyer and chapel with robust video and audio capabilities.

Whether you wish to arrange for a traditional funeral or a celebration of life ceremony, plan to have a large gathering or would like a more intimate service, our team will work with you 1-on-1 to ensure your needs, wishes and budget are met. It is our promise to provide you with the utmost care and to create a ceremony that is special and meaningful.

Mills & Mills Memorial Park

The sister location to the funeral home, Mills & Mills Memorial Park is a beautiful cemetery surrounded by wooded land. Within our cemetery grounds, you'll find the Pacific Northwest spirit alive and thriving. We specifically care for and maintain many special trees and plants: giant sequoias, maples, pines and an 88-foot-tall American chestnut tree—the largest in the Pacific Northwest and renowned as the largest healthy member of its species in the United States.

Currently, only 18 of the memorial park's 32 acres are developed for cemetery use. The remaining land remains open for future gardens, features and generations. The cemetery currently maintains 10 gardens for ground burial, each with its own special features. We have a mausoleum for above-ground entombment and various niche walls for cremation urn placement.

We keep a full-time, year-round crew to care for our serene cemetery. Even in the lull of winter, we remain dedicated to the highest quality care of our lawns, trees, shrubs and plants.

We honor veterans

Mills & Mills Funeral Home & Memorial Park understands the unique needs of America’s veterans and their families. As a Level One Founding Community Partner with We Honor Veterans, our staff is knowledgeable in the benefits available to veterans and their families. With respect, integrity and dignity, we will walk you through the steps of creating a veteran's memorial service that truly honors the life and sacrifice of your loved one.

Contact us, day or night

Both the funeral home and cemetery offer services founded on respect, dependability and integrity. We welcome you to come by for a tour of the cemetery grounds and modern funeral home where you can also meet the friendly funeral home and cemetery teams.

Community events

In addition to the services we provide at the funeral home and cemetery, we also invite the community to join us periodically throughout the year for various events. Every year, we host a Memorial Day program to honor those who have served our country. On Halloween, we host an evening Countdown to Candy event. We also invite the public to attend our Light The Night luminary event during the holiday season. It is our hope that these events will bring a sense of comfort and community to families who are grieving.

History

Mills & Mills began at the turn of the century when William R. Whiteside, an undertaker from St. Louis, Missouri, settled in Olympia, Washington, and built the original facility at what is now 414 S. Franklin St. in 1901. This historic building, except for some slight modifications and remodeling (in 1928, 1954 and 1980), remains mostly in its original form.

In 1906, the Whiteside family moved operations to the then more promising area in Grays Harbor and sold the business to Louis J. Sticklin of Chehalis, Washington. Louis was originally a cabinetmaker and started his 1st funeral home in Morris, Pennsylvania. In 1890, he came to the Pacific Northwest and set up shop in Chehalis. The Sticklin Undertaking Company operated the business until 1915, when it was sold to Jesse T. Mills.

Family passion

Jesse T. Mills was a colorful character in Olympia and served as the city sheriff from 1900 to 1903 and mayor from 1917 to 1920. In 1919, he brought his nephew Arley D. Mills into the business of Mills Funeral Parlors. In the mid-1920s, the uncle-nephew team changed the name to Mills & Mills Funeral Home.

Jesse died in 1943, and Arley brought an old friend, Lawrence O. “L.O.” Swenson, into the business as a partner. This arrangement lasted until Jesse died in 1956 and Lawrence took over as the sole owner of the business. The business was then sold to Dan L. McCaughan in 1963. He held proprietorship until January 1980, when he sold the business to Doug and Barbara Twibell. The business had been known as Mills & Mills Funeral Service. In the following years, the name evolved to Mills & Mills Funeral Directors and later to Mills & Mills Funeral Home.

Standing strong

Aside from necessary updates and repairs, the historic Franklin Street building stood steady and served the needs of our team and client families for many years. On February 28, 2001, a 6.5-magnitude earthquake centered in the Nisqually Delta hit the Olympia area. The building rocked and moved with the rest of downtown Olympia. Unfortunately, the building sustained substantial damage and the business was moved to Olympic Memorial Gardens on Littlerock Road. On September 11, 2005, the new building was dedicated under its current name.

View Other Bremerton-WA Locations

Amenities

Location

Cremation

Service

Religious & Cultural

Other

100% SERVICE GUARANTEE

At Dignity Memorial, we take our promises seriously. That’s why we offer a 100% service guarantee. We strive to get every detail right the first time, every time. If for some reason we don’t and you’re dissatisfied with any aspect of your service, we will remedy it quickly and fully. Learn about our Dignity Difference benefits.

Learn about our Dignity Difference benefits.

Recent Obituaries

See All Obituaries

When new obituaries are added, receive a notification by email or phone.

Receive notifications

Plan ahead and save

Pre-plan today to protect the people you love and receive no interest on prepaid cremation property and burial plans when paid in full within 60 months.

ACT NOW
Floral component background

Express your sympathy with flowers & gifts

1-800-Flowers

View arrangements

Remember the one you love

Remember the one you love

Honor the memory of your loved one with cemetery flower placement. You choose the flowers. You choose the months. We do the rest.

Learn More

Ratings & Reviews

Verified Customer Reviews

Since 2005, many of our customers have taken the time to tell us how we did each year via our Voice of the Customer program. Our star ratings and comments from families come directly from these surveys.

"Nice funeral director who was very thorough.good experience at a difficult time."

jd-power-verified-checkmark Verified Burial & Memorial Service Customer

September 2020

"The best decision my husband and I made was to plan ahead with Mills & Mills so that when one of us passed our expense would be paid for or minimized. The recent death of my husband has been hard enough but our choice was a Godsend . The staff was amazing and compassionate."

jd-power-verified-checkmark Verified Burial & Memorial Service Customer

August 2020

"Good people providing assistance and direction. We had a prepaid service which made the process easy because Mom had already set up her 'plan'. The staff was excellent in providing direction and guidance on things we need to do on our own."

jd-power-verified-checkmark Verified Burial & Memorial Service Customer

August 2020

"Thank you does not express how much I appreciate Mills & Mills and in particular Sarah Cannon. Sarah guided me through a very tough time with patience, kindness and a sense of calm. She was ALWAYS available for me and was experienced enough to ask the questions I did not know needed to be asked and answered. She offered advice when appropriate and accepted my choices and decisions. Sarah will always be in my heart because she was with me every step of the way through this process. The words Thank You do not do justice to the extent of gratitude I feel for Sarah and the Mills & Mills staff."

jd-power-verified-checkmark Verified Burial & Memorial Service Customer

June 2020

View More Reviews

Meet Our Team

Here for you when you need us.

  • Tiffany Marone

    Tiffany Marone

    Funeral Director
  • Puyallup Funeral Home Manager - Powers Funeral Home

    Diane Ruth Achord

    Manager
  • Seattle Funeral Home Funeral Director - Acacia Memorial Park & Funeral Home

    Sarah Kate Cannon

    Funeral Director
View Biographies

Other Resources

Scenic walkway with flowers, green grass and trees.

CHECKLIST

What to do when someone dies

learn more
Chapel at Geo. H. Lewis & Sons Funeral Directors

COSTS

How much does an average funeral cost?

Learn more
A cremation garden with beveled memorial niches.

CREMATION

Permanent memorials for cremated ashes

LEARN MORE
A couple pre-plans on a tablet at a funeral home.

PREPAID PLANS

How to pay for a funeral in installments

LEARN MORE
Pathway through a cremation garden in a cemetery with niches, boulders and benches.

CEMETERY, CREMATION

Cemetery options for cremation

LEARN MORE