Mildred "Millie" Ruth Hardy

August 29, 1928 - February 13, 2020

Mildred "Millie" Ruth Hardy (nee Gracey); August 29, 1928 - February 13, 2020; Beloved wife of the late John Boone Hardy; Devoted mother of Lauren (Phil) Borger and John Jay (Vicki) Hardy; Cherished grandmother of Kristin (Joe) Veselsky, John Arron (Trista) Stahr, Justin (Emily) Stahr and Kara (Rich) Sanders; Cherished GG of Alec, Amelia, Adrien, Teagen, Tatum, Thatcher, Lilly and Sadie Joy; Our dear aunt, great aunt, great great aunt, cousin, and friend to many; Memorials preferred to Maplewood Mystery Santa Program, C/O Maplewood City Hall, 7601 Manchester, 63143; Donations are preferred to this in her memory: Maplewood Mystery Santa C/O Maplewood City Hall, 7601 Manchester, Maplewood, MO 63143; Millie loved Maplewood, MO… Her parents, Harry and Rosie Gracey moved to 7540 Ellis Ave. when she was just 2 months old… It is the only home she lived in her whole life and it became a century home which she was quite proud of… She attended the Old Valley School which was across from the current Maplewood City Hall and continued her entire education through the Maplewood Richmond Heights School District. Her father, Harry, served on the MRH School Board at the time of her high school graduation and was able to present her with her high school diploma… She went on to graduate from Comptometer School (early type of calculator) and work at Birds Eye Frozen Foods… Millie became an amazing wife, mother, book keeper, school parent leader, Sunday school teacher, active Maplewood citizen and an Original Laker… As a homemaker Millie had skills… Cooking came easy, she could sew anything, she was the budgeter, paid the bills and her household organization started with her pantry… The pantry shelves were in the same order as the grocery store shelves to help with efficient list making and speed shopping… When John Boone Hardy chose Millie as a wife he hit an out of the park grand slam… He loved playing ball and Millie let him… Sometimes 3 nights a week… From those teams came lifelong bonds and friends for both Millie and John Boone… As a mother, Millie was always there for Lauren and me, she taught us love, manners, honesty, friendship, Christian faith and to have faith in ourselves… These lessons were taught in conventional and some very unconventional ways to say the least… Millie was a omnipresence in the halls of the MRH schools that we attended… She was a homeroom mother, PTA leader, Mother’s Club member, voting poll worker and consummate volunteer… Millie never voted against a bond or tax issue when it came to the MRH schools… She hosted informational meetings in her home and of course let others know how she was voting… Millie’s stay-at-home-mom days ended when Lauren started college in 1969… She began keeping the books at the funeral home for the extra income and did that until her eye sight weakened… She enjoyed being a part of the business community… The Maplewood Chamber of Commerce folks knew her well as she was a part of the very first chamber dinner fund raiser event and many that followed… She attended many lunch meetings and annual Christmas office gatherings… Millie supported the businesses in Maplewood and she often said that if you couldn’t buy it in Maplewood, you probably didn’t need it… It was a good thing that a tattoo shop never opened in town because she may have gotten a tattoo… After the books became computerized she began coming in to the office on only Tuesday and Thursday… On those nights, she and John Boone would then go out to dinner some place in Maplewood… Their love and friendship for each other during this time served as an example to many young couples that they befriended over those years… Maplewood Baptist Church was big part of Millie’s life… She participated with many Vacation Bible School programs and helped where ever there was an area of need within the church… Millie and John Boone were essential partners in the start of the church gymnasium that was built in the early 1960’s… For years they then worked many a Friday supervising the roller skating and open play that children in Maplewood enjoyed and still talk about today… She was recently recognized for having been a Sunday School teacher for over 50 years… The story goes that she was dropping me off for Sunday School and I would not quit crying, so she stayed in class, eventually became a teacher and never left… We all know how stories can change over the years, but there was probably very little crying on my part and more of she just loved being with her son… The Maplewood City Hall staff, Fire Department, Police Department as well as the mayor and council folks over the years all knew Millie Hardy… She served on several boards through the years, her favorite being a zoning committee that she called the “Beauty Board”… They reviewed zoning complaints and requests for variances… She said she was able to meet new people and be nosey at the same time… Millie was proud to call many of these past and present leaders in Maplewood her friends… The other location in Millie’s life beside Maplewood that she dearly loved was the Lake of the Ozarks… In fact she would tell you and claimed to be an “Original Laker” a term I am sure she and John Boone created… Her father, Harry, began taking her there on vacation in the early 1940’s just after the lake was formed… We have pictures of the Gravois Beach Resort with the rustic log cabins they stayed in, complete with the outhouse out back and no running water… Harry eventually bought a lot just down the road from the resort and started building a cabin… Unfortunately he died before it was finished… His passion for the lake was in Millie and she and her family made sure the cabin was finished… It is still there today, on the same lot, with some of the same structure intack and lots of changes of course… What hasn’t changed is our family’s love of this special place, a place where we have all grown up, played and learned the love of family… Love we learned from our matriarch Millie… We will endeavor to keep this place in our family for generations to come… One of Millie’s favorite events and charities was the Maplewood Mystery Santa Claus program… Donations are preferred to this in her memory: Maplewood Mystery Santa C/O Maplewood City Hall, 7601 Manchester, Maplewood, MO 63143