Dr. William Mills Jr.

Well known and loved Dr. William J. Mills, Jr., 93, died at home Sunday afternoon, December 4, 2011, surrounded by his family.

A memorial service will be held at First Presbyterian Church, on Sunday, December 18th at 3 pm.

Dr. Mills was born in San Francisco in 1918, to William and Rose Mills. He first lived in Anchorage, AK on Government Hill, at the age of 4, when his father served in the U.S. Army. Dr. Mills graduated from High School in Riverside, California, in 1936. With $60 in his pocket, he left for the University of California at Berkeley. He found work, and as he said, "majored in Anthropology, Zoology and Poverty". After earning these undergraduate degrees from Cal-Berkeley, he enlisted in the Navy as an apprentice seaman, just after the attack on Pearl Harbor. He was chosen for midshipman school and was commissioned in four months. He served as a commissioned ensign in the U.S. Navy during World War II from 1942-1945.

During the Solomon Islands Campaign, while commanding PT 181, he sustained two major injuries. The first was shrapnel in his shoulder. Four months later, he sustained two open fractures of the lower legs. Due to the crude conditions on Kolombangara Island at the time, gangrene set into the wounds on one leg which led to its amputation, without the benefit of anesthesia, or as he told, "just like in Hollywood, I was helped with a cigarette and a shot of rye whiskey".

While recuperating in hospital on Mare Island, in the fall of 1945, Bill Mills was accepted to the Stanford Medical School. He graduated from Stanford in 1949, and began an internship and residency program at the University Hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan. After a year of residency, he became engaged to Elaine M. Nagelvoort. Before setting a wedding date, Dr. Mills came to Alaska again, this time as a cannery doctor at Clark Point in Bristol Bay. He often told stories of his experiences there, including delivering babies and performing appendectomies on the kitchen table. While in Bristol Bay, his fiancÃe and her parents sent messages over the radio asking if he was ever coming back to marry her. Then, one day he got a call on the radio from some big, tough fisherman out in the bay, saying "Hey, Doc; are you going to marry that girl or ain't ya?" So when the fish stopped running, Bill went back to Owosso, Michigan. On the 23rd of August, 1952, Elaine Nagelvoort and William Mills were married, and remained so for 59 years.

Dr. Mills completed his orthopedic residency in Michigan, and in the spring of 1955, moved to Alaska with their first child. Dr. Mills opened his orthopedic practice in downtown Anchorage. In addition to his regular practice, he began holding handicapped children's clinics throughout out the Territory of Alaska, from Kodiak to McGrath, and as far north as Barrow.

Soon after arriving in Alaska, Dr. Mills resigned his Navy retirement as an ensign and was commissioned a full lieutenant in the Navy Medical Department, U.S. Naval Reserve. In time he rose in rank to commander, captain and rear admiral. And his family expanded to a total of seven children.

In 1966, Dr. Mills - disturbed by the number of very young men being sent to Vietnam where there was a paucity of physicians, dentists and chaplains - volunteered for service. He was assigned to the 3rd Marine Amphibious Force. Soon he was ordered to the Naval Hospital at Danang, Republic of Vietnam, as the Chief of Orthopedics. He described this year as "a wicked experience in human carnage", where he increased his surgical skills out of necessity.

After returning from Vietnam in 1967, he pursued a variety of professional medical opportunities that included an academic year in Nashville, Tennessee as an assistant professor on a cerebral palsy grant at Vanderbilt University. Back in Anchorage again in 1968, he worked at Alaska Crippled Children's Center caring for post-polio and cerebral palsy patients and then went to work as a consultant at the Alaska Native Service hospital.

Throughout his career, Dr. Mills maintained a keen interest in cold injury and the care of hypothermia, frostbite and immersion injury. His activity in this arena included being a consultant for NASA in cold injury. His frostbite program in Anchorage was started with a $50,000 research grant from the U.S. Naval Research Department and later buttressed with a grant from the Alaska Legislature for $800,000 that was administered by the School of Nursing and Health Science at UAA. From this funding he developed the High Altitude Research Camps at 7,300 feet and 14,000 feet on Mount McKinley.

While practicing in Alaska, Dr. Mills developed a system of care for freezing-injury that is now utilized in most of the world. He was been cited as "the nation's leading authority on cold injury" at that time, and has been written of and referenced for his expertise in many journals and symposia.

In addition to his office practice of child and adult orthopedics, his cold injury research and treatment, and his volunteer work as team physician for the UAA teams, Dr. Mills also taught courses in thermal injury, trauma and cold physiology as an adjunct professor in the School of Nursing and Health Sciences at UAA, and as a Clinical Professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine. He was awarded an honorary degree from UAA and was inducted into the UAA Hall of Fame. Just this fall, he was inducted into the UAA Athletic Hall of Fame as well.

Dr. Mills was a well known Alaskan physician. His many accomplishments include the military awards Legion of Merit, Bronze Star Medal, Purple Heart, as well as seven service ribbons. His professional awards and honors include the Certificate of Merit from the State of Alaska, induction to the Alaska Hall of Fame, Alaskan Physician of the Year, Hubble Space Telescope Medallion, several Anchorage Mayor's Award, Alaska Governor's Award, Distinguished Achievement Award of University of Michigan, Honorary Doctor of Letters from University of Alaska, and many other citations, certificates of appreciation and honors that are too numerous to mention.

He was a treasured Alaskan and his contributions were abundant. In addition to his professional accomplishments, Bill Mills enjoyed photography, philately, splitting wood, music; also hunting, fishing and camping in Alaska with his family and spending time with his grandchildren.

Dr. William Mills, Jr. is survived by his wife of 59 years, Elaine M. Mills; children Sarah Mills, Janet Miessner, Martha Rapuzzi, Mary Day, John Mills and Matthew Mills; his 17 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. He is preceded in death by his son, William J. Mills, III.

Arrangements are with Janssen's Evergreen Memorial Chapel.