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Obituary for MILDRED IRENE WILLS
Mildred Molly Irene Wills was born on May 16, 1921 in Sunderland, Maryland. She was the sixth of thirteen children born to the late Ashby Rawlings Sr. and Sarah Morsell-Rawlings.
Mildred was a lifelong resident of Calvert County, where she was educated at Mount Hope Elementary and Brooks High Schools. As a young child, she worked on a farm alongside her father and siblings. At an early age, she learned how to cook while watching her mother cook the family's dinners. At an early age, she also developed her religious foundation while attending Mt. Hope United Methodist Church.
In the early 1930s Mildred met Calvin Wills Sr., and the two were married on September 12, 1942. Their union produced eleven children, 7 boys and 4 girls. Mildred was an excellent cook and always had plenty of food for her family and anyone else who stopped by to visit with her. She especially enjoyed cooking large dinners for everyone on Sundays.
After getting married, Mildred continued to assist her husband by working on the farm and raising her children. Later on in her life she became a domestic worker and began chauffeuring ladies from Calvert County to Bowie, Maryland. She loved driving those ladies to work every day. Even when the ladies did not have any money to pay her, she would say "oh come on, get in this car". She had so much fun talking and laughing with these ladies. Sometimes she would even drop them off at the wrong house in the morning, but she would be back to pick them up at the right house with a big smile on her face. Mildred continued to provide this service for about 20 years.
To know Mildred was to appreciate her love for others and her sense of humor. She was always playing jokes on people especially her husband. She enjoyed laughing and telling stories to her grandchildren about how hard she and her father worked on the farm. And how she and Aunt Ida ate a whole pound of hotdogs while walking home from the store one evening. She always enjoyed having her nieces and nephews visit her, especially her niece Valerie Ward.
Mildred quietly departed this life on Wednesday, April 12, 2017, at the NMH Health Care at Annapolis Maryland. She was preceded in death by her husband Calvin Wills Sr.; and her son Calvin Wills Jr.; one daughter-in-law Edna Wills; her parents (Ashby Rawlings Sr., and Sarah Morsell-Rawlings); three brothers (Stanley, Ashby Jr., and Henry Rawlings); and seven sisters (Eva Smith, Ringgold Clayton, Charlotte Burriss, Landous Smith, Sadie Gray, Blanche Ward, and Marjorie Nowlin).
Her memory lives on through her 4 daughters; Eva (Sammy), Rachel (Larry), Cheryl, Mary Tee (Virgil) and her 6 sons; Leroy, Frank, Cleveland (Jean), Oliver (Sheila), Gregory, Sherman (Marvel), and a host of grandchildren, great grandchildren, great great grandchildren (two sets of five generations), nieces, nephews, two sisters (Emma Kent and Ida Rice) and one brother-in-law (Benjamin Ward).
