Rita Jean Milhollin

June 15, 1941 - April 24, 2023

Rita Jean Milhollin, a feminist trailblazer and beloved Mother and Grandmother, died at home April 24, 2023 surrounded by her family.

Rita Jean was born in Muncie, Ind., Sunday June 15, 1941, to parents Herschel Milhollin, who worked in the airline manufacturing industry, and Cenith Milhollin (nee Thomas), a homemaker and in later life a real estate agent. Rita was an industrious and often precocious child who loved animals and playing sports, particularly basketball. She was a proud Hoosier, along with her brothers Gary and Steve. From an early age she helped with chores on her grandmother's farm and assisted with a neighborhood paper route. A bright student, Rita had ambitions of reaching higher education, despite being discouraged by her parents in this endeavor. It was at this point in her life that she began experimenting with challenging authority, an activity that would be a lifelong practice when encountering barriers to equality and opportunity.

Rita attended the University of Kansas where she pledged the sorority Pi Beta Phi. She regularly undermined the strict patriarchal norms associated with being in a sorority house. She was very social and active on campus during her undergraduate years in addition to being an exemplary student.

She graduated Phi Beta Kappa and Magna Cum Laude in psychology. Rita attended graduate school at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo. She graduated with a PhD after successfully defending her dissertation entitled "Psychological Openness as a Correlate of Response Style in a Simulated Counseling Interview."

Rita served as a Clinical Psychologist and Educator at the University of California at Irvine for over 30 years. She was an early contributor to the UC Irvine Counseling center, at one point serving as its director. During her tenure she made major impacts on young men and women at the University as a trail blazing feminist educator and consciousness raiser. She facilitated retreats in which young women learned to maximize their potential and challenge stereotypes. She developed assertion training modules in which students learned to advocate their viewpoints without being passive or aggressive. Later in her career she trained peer educators in the skills they needed to help other students improve their health outcomes and well-being. In addition to her professional work, she was a pitcher for the Counseling Center's softball team and a frequent source of humor.

Rita's life was transformed by becoming a mother. She was wholly invested in raising and supporting her children in the pursuit of their goals. She also had a positive impact on many young people in the Irvine community through her coaching of numerous softball teams. Her passions included teaching her children to appreciate music and nature. She led many expeditions hunting huckleberries and edible mushrooms, tidal pooling on the Mendocino Coast and touring national parks across the U.S. Rita also had a major hand in building the foundation of the next generation of her family. She took care of her grandchildren, taught them to read and instilled in them a spirited approach to card games of all kinds. Rita's legacy is her devotion to family, fierce belief in developing one's gifts to serve humanity, and her example of challenging and creating lasting change within a patriarchal and discriminatory educational system.

She is survived by her brother, Gary; sister-in-law, Monique; daughters, Elizabeth and Jennifer; son, John Jr.; sons-in-law, Matt and Ian; daughter-in-law, Candice; and grandchildren, Abigail, Jack, Mia, Emmalyn, Cash, Penelope, Amelia, and Noah. Her beloved son, William passed away in 2005.

The family will hold a celebration of life May 20, 2023, in Portland.