Billie Jean Milum

Billie Jean Milum was born Tuesday, February 11th 1930, to William Leo McKim and Vera Mae McKim. She grew up in Santa Paula, CA, where she met, fell in love with, and lived her early married life with her high school sweetheart and forever love, Boyd Eugene Milum. Billie showed early in life that she was one to be respected and loved by those around her. One of Billie’s favorite jokes growing up in this very small town was this: sometimes after school, she and her best friend would drive her friend’s Model A Ford past the parking lot while Billie sat in the passenger seat waving at people with both hands, while her best friend was crouched down on the floor operating the pedals and holding the steering wheel, so it appeared Billie was alone in the car.

Billie had a few jobs before she was married to her forever love. One of her favorite pre-marriage jobs was as a telephone operator. That was in the days of cord boards, which required a calling party to call the operator and give the operator the name and city of the party the caller wanted. The operator would then take the cord line the caller was on and connect it by plugging it into either the corresponding receptacle hole for local calls, route it to an operator at the corresponding city operator’s station, or to a central operator’s center in the US. Billie was meticulous and won several awards for her error-free routing and connections of calls.

When Billie and Boyd decided to marry in 1947, Billie’s parents were strongly opposed to the marriage as they thought Billie's 17 years was too young. The state of California agreed as the legal age for marriage was 18. Not to be deterred, Billie and Boyd eloped and their best friends drove them to Las Vegas where they could legally be married. In 1951 Billie and Boyd had their first child Craig, then in 1953 their second child Cynthia, then lastly in 1962 their third child Cort. Billie was a stay at home mom and helped make sure that her kids all had the best lives.

Heartaches and setbacks happened to Billie but she never ever gave up and worked to provide everything humanly possible for her family. She was predeceased by their daughter Cynthia, her husband Boyd, their grandson Zachariah and granddaughter Marilee. But as was her way, she was always a firm, gracious and loving support and help for those around her while enduring these and other losses. Billie’s warmth and strength and love will never be replaced or forgotten by anyone who had the incredible good fortune to be blessed by her presence.