Lucy Blanche Milligan

Lucy Blanche Milligan went home on July 13, 2013. She was born on June 13, 1919, in Flagler, Colorado, daughter of Theodore S. Hunter and Ettie Blanche Harding. She had an older brother, Paul Gordon Hunter who preceded her in1994. Her father was a pastor and the family moved to various small towns in Iowa, Kansas, and finally settled in Wickenburg, AZ in 1924. Growing up in the depression, she said she had only one pair of shoes and they had cardboard soles. She only wore them to church on Sundays and went barefoot the rest of the time. Her father drove a circuit to preach in the mining camps in the hills between Wickenburg and Prescott and she often went with him. Around 1929 her father moved to Glendale where she attended Phoenix Union High School, graduating in 1938. One of her regrets was never finishing college, but she was an avid reader and could hold her own in a discussion with most college grads. She married Lindley Parkins Hussey at the Army Post Chapel in Smyrna, TN on Oct 10, 1941. During World War II she worked as a secretary at the Papago Park POW camp for Italian POWs in Phoenix while Lindley was flying in Libya. After that Lucy found music from the World War II period depressing, especially “White Christmas.” After WWII they settled in Tucson, AZ where Lindley went to college and Lucy took care of two kids, Jonathan (b. 1948) and Daniel (b. 1951), and a cat named George. In 1952 they moved to Richland, WA. Lindley was an engineer at the Hanford Nuclear Power Facility and Lucy took care of the kids and four cats. In 1954 they moved to Glendora, California where Lindley worked for the Aerojet General Corporation, and finally, in 1955 they moved to Fair Oaks, CA with the company. Lindley died in 1964 and Lucy went to work as secretary of the First Presbyterian Church of Fair Oaks from 1964 to 1974 to pay bills and put two kids through college. She married Harold Milligan in 1968, and they lived in Fair Oaks until 1980 when they moved to 95 Wildwood Dr., Prescott, AZ. She had said that as a child, one of her ambitions was to live in Prescott, and she got her wish. Her husband, one son, and her grandson, joined the military went off to various combat zones and she said that “After three times, it never got any easier,” but she did travel to Japan, Korea, Germany, and France, and England when her kids were living there. In Prescott, she belonged to the Trinity Presbyterian Church and served on the Session. She belonged to the Trinity Women’s Association until there were only three members left. She was secretary of the group for a large part of her time with them. Harold died in 1997 and in 1998 she moved to the Samaritan Village. She passed away there on July 13, 2013, in her sleep with sons, daughters-in-law and close friends nearby. She is survived by two sons, Jonathan Hussey of Riverside, CA and Daniel Hussey of Wallace, ID, and their wives Jennifer and Cathy, three grand children, Diana Bergman, Thomas Hussey, and Rebecca Hussey, a great-grandson Ilan Hunter Bergman, and a great-grandaughter due in November.