Mildred Nell McLain

Mildred Nell McLain (nee Adams) died on Oct 11, 2013 at the age of 97.

Mildred was born on New Year’s Eve to Frank Adamaitis and Nell Adamick (nee Russen) in Sugar Notch, PA. Mildred lost her mother when she was two years old, and was raised by her Lithuanian-speaking grandmother Anelka Russena, whom Millie loved dearly.

Forced out of school in Minersville PA before graduation by the Great Depression, Mildred joined the work force locally, later moving to Roselle Park, NJ, where her brother Frank Adams lived, and then to Jersey City, NJ where she met Ralph McLain.

At the time, Mildred worked for the Western Electric Company in Kearny NJ. Mildred and Ralph attended the 1939 NY World’s Fair and were attempting to buy Baltic amber jewelry when the Lithuanian pavilion abruptly shut down due to the invasion of Poland. Ralph and Millie were married in Jersey City on New Year’s Day 1942.

Ralph was fighting in Italy with the US Army when his son Ralph, Jr was born in 1944. The closing days of WW II claimed the life of Mildred’s beloved older brother Joseph Adamaitis, killed in 1945 by a sniper in Germany. Her daughter Patricia was born in Jersey City in 1946.

Millie Joined the RCA Corp in 1950 and became an electronics technician. Sadly, her brother Frank Adams, died of cancer in 1959, leaving his wife Doris and seven children whom Ralph and Millie visited frequently.

Mildred was quite proud of finishing high school, receiving her GED in 1964 through night classes.

Mildred was never happy as a city girl. Even in Jersey City, her rural instincts came out and her flower garden was extolled in the Jersey Journal newspaper as the envy of the neighborhood. Once Ralph and Mildred had both retired, Mildred was finally able to get out of the city, and in 1975, they bought a small place on a mountaintop in Bear Creek where they happily settled in with the trees, the birds, the deer, and an occasional bear on the back porch. Millie gardened to her heart’s content, and their children and grandchildren were frequent visitors to the little house by the blinking yellow light. Ralph and Millie were still there in 2001 when Ralph died. Mildred stayed in her beloved home with the help of her longtime good friends Joanne Thompson and Corrine Bonk and their husbands, until shortly before her death last week.

Mildred is survived by her son Ralph, Jr, a retired AF officer; daughter Patricia Flaherty, a teacher and artist; her grandchildren, Jennifer McLain, Evan McLain, and Orion Flaherty; four great-grandchildren; three nieces and four nephews.

Celebration of Mildred’s Life will be held Saturday with Funeral Mass at 9:30 AM in the Church of Saint Mary of the Immaculate Conception.

Visitation will be held on Friday from 3 to 7 PM at McLaughlin's - The Family Funeral Service, 142 South Washington Street in Wilkes-Barre.

Mildred’s cremains will ultimately reside with her beloved husband Ralph’s in a niche in the Arlington National Cemetery columbarium. The inurnment ceremony will be held in March 2014 at a date and time to be determined.

PLEASE SEND NO FLOWERS. Instead kindly contribute in Mildred McLain’s name to the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America at www.alzfdn.org