Click here to see a photo of Frank Mills WW2 awards and service.

Click here to see Frank Mills Telecom award for service from the 1980s.

As remembered by his daughter Dawne Furnell (Mills):
Frank Desmond Mills was born 16th March 1926.    The youngest child to a farmer, Richard Henry Mills and Elsie Adelaide (Peterson.)  Unfortunately Dad's father and Grandfather both passed away within days of one another, 9 months after Dad was born. Grandma was left to raise Colin Lloyd, Shirley Doreen, Audrey Lorraine, and Frank Desmond alone.  She never married again.  The Mills family bought Grandma two houses in Horsham, 2 Robinson Street, and the other in Roberts Ave, which she let out.  We presume she was helped out with meat etc. from the farm; also her own family were farmers at Blackheath. 

Dad began his working life at Langlands where he met and married Mum, Joyce Tinker.   They spent their entire married life in Horsham. Dad enlisted into the RAAF World War 11, in 1944 with his brother-in-law Ken Tinker. He spent time in Darwin working on the airstrips.  Later he was employed by the PMG Department as a lineman, now Telecom and was with them the rest of his working life.  Having four children and not a great wage, Dad always worked extra part time jobs, for his 'beer and smoke money'  In the early days he worked every night at the Billiard room, and on some weekends, at the Rifle range, in the bar at the horse and trotting races and later at the Greyhound races.  He worked hard when we were kids, and we didn’t go without.

Mum and Dad were beautiful dancers, not that they had much opportunity after us kids came along. I remember him telling us, his sister Audrey paid him to dance with her at some function. Also he was a strong swimmer and talked about swimming across Green Lake when he was younger. He would wrestle with his mates (after a few beers) and was in tug of war teams.  He was a strict father but a very relaxed Grandfather.   

He was an excellent Grandfather; his Grandchildren loved spending time with him. We all loved his jokes and his stories.  Always whistling, you would hear him before you would see him. Every Sunday morning he would call and take Lee, Toni and Suzi to buy his weekly purchase of eggs at Dooen, and then back into town to get a bag of lollies each.

He always knew what was going on around the place; we joked and said he was the Mayor of Churchill Road.  He had a dry sense of humour, beautiful blue eyes and a great whistle. He was taken from us far too early; he passed away on 30-8-1992 aged 66 years.

Obituary Frank Mills- written and read by his Granddaughter Lee Pearson for her Pa on 2/9/2012:
The odd thing about funerals/death is the way they seem to return everything to its right perspective. It has nothing to do with the old line about life being so precious; it is more the realization that life is really short.  We think if only we could have had Frank a little bit longer but like someone said to me there would still never be enough time.

We are here today to farewell Frank Mills- father of four children, Margaret, Graeme, Dawne and Malcolm all now in adulthood.  A Grandfather to five granddaughters myself, Toni, Suzi, Sharon and Lisa.  Pa married Joyce Tinker in 1942, and this year they celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. Pa was born into a farming family from Jung; he was the youngest of four children of Richard and Elsie Mills. After his father died at an early age (Pa was only 9 months old) the family moved into Horsham, where later he went to school at 298.  He was not a great scholar and I remember him saying he spent most of the time outside gardening (because he was in trouble) or ringing the bell.  He left school at an early age and worked in Geelong where he lived with an Aunt. 

He joined the Air Force and was stationed up in Darwin; he was with the Air Force for 2 years and came home in 1945. He then worked for the P.M.G. now Telecom for many years. Pa actually retired many years ago, due to ill health; he had been with Telecom for 35 years. He found retirement a bit of a drag for a while, he missed working. However, he finally got used to the idea and enjoyed his outdoors, the garden and fishing. I think Pa was at that time in life when he was expecting to settle into happy middle and late age, he had finally found his niche.  Pa was a genuine person who enjoyed the simple things, he was a great outdoorsman. He was really interested in his vegetable garden and loved growing “things that were useful” he enjoyed fishing and having a beer with mates. He was involved with greyhound racing and had a great interest in horseracing and football.  He was doing all of these things until his illness struck him down and after 10 months of suffering it finally destroyed him. 

Pa learnt and understood all about hardship, pain and suffering, he was a tough cookie. It was in these months that the district nurses became part of Pa’s daily routine and he loved them.  They did a great deal to care for Pa, we were lucky to have him at home. There are a lot of good friends and neighbours in Horsham community who are very special, none less than Pat James and Cousin Bev as Pa called Bev Beattie.  We all have our own memories of Frank, the stories and jokes we shared with him.
He was a special person, someone  you looked up to.