Milford Robertson

A celebration of life for Milford M. Robertson will be Monday, June 25, 2012, 2PM at The First United Methodist Church with Dr. Grayson L. Lucky officiating. Entombment with military honors will follow in the Memorial Park Cemetery Mausoleum under the direction of The Ladusau-Evans Funeral Home. Milford was born in the cold of winter, January 2, 1916 on the homestead in Harper County, OK near Fort Supply, OK the son of pioneer parents John Howie and Effie Blanch Harris Robertson. At the age of three, he and his family moved to Stillwater where he attended grade school through college earning a BS Degree in Animal Husbandry from Oklahoma AM (OSU) in 1938.

A hard worker all of his life, Milford began working at a young age selling the Saturday Evening Post on the college campus and in his neighborhood, working in the stock barns close to where Theta Pond is today and picking potato bugs where the fraternity and sorority houses are on University Ave.

After college graduation, he was assigned to Pawhuska as Assistant County Supervisor of Farm Security in Osage County and later went to Ellis County as supervisor of US Farm Security Administration (Farmers Home Administration).

It was working near Alva that he went to weekend dances and met a Northwestern student, Evelyn Meigs, whom he fell in love with and married on Jan. 11, 1941 in Cherokee, OK at a ministers home.

Milford and Evelyn moved to Arnett to continue in his agriculture work that was abruptly interrupted by the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Evelyn went out to the field to tell him and he immediately enlisted in the Army Air Corps and was sent to Officer Candidate School in Miami Beach, FL in Jan. 1943. Evelyn followed “her soldier” to Army Air Force Bases in Florida, Maryland, Louisiana and Alabama. She located in Enid while Milford served in the Southwest Pacific in New Guinea, Layte, The Philippines and Okinawa. First Lt. Robertson was squad commander of the 437th Aviation Squadron, commissioned a Captain before his honorable discharge.

Typical of the great generation, Milford’s life was shaped by the Great Depression and WWII. From those times and his family he learned resilience, kindness, integrity and leadership.

Having lived almost a full century, he lived each day too the fullest possible reading, exercising and making new friends at the Commons Retirement Center. In the past few months he was honored to go on Oklahoma Honor Flight # 2 with his eldest grandson and other Oklahoma WWII veterans, attend the 80th birthday party of the Pioneer Statue in Ponca City as an honored guest, having been there as a teenager when it was first unveiled. He and Evelyn celebrated their 70th anniversary at a beautiful party in their honor on Jan. 11, 2001 before she passed away May 29, 2011.

He loved his family, generations of Garfield County farm families, people, (most especially children), his church, reading books, his children’s friends and horses.

Milford was a member of The First United Methodist Church for over sixty years, a 20 year member of the Enid Noon Lion’s Club, The VFW and a former member of the Oklahoma Chapter of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers.

Survivors include two daughters, Carolyn Hopkins and husband Lynn of Ponca City, Kay Boomer and husband Lynn of Shattuck, three grandchildren, Drew Hopkins, Marsh Boomer and wife Jan, and Kurt Boomer and wife Ashley, four great grandchildren, Taylor Andrew Boomer, Susanna Grace Boomer, Seth Robertson Boomer and Grayson Paine Boomer and numerous nieces and nephews. He is also survived by a faithful and loyal caregiver, Janice Kerr.

Memorial contributions may be made to Oklahoma Honor Flights or The Enid Salvation Army with Ladusau-Evans Funeral Home serving as custodian of the Fund.