Don Mills is Living Life to its Fullest

“I can hardly walk, barely talk, deaf as a post, blind as a bat, but fit as a fiddle and ready for love,” says 98-year-old Marco Island resident and World War II Army veteran Don Mills.

The recipient of much of that love is Doreen Hertel, his 84-year-old live-in girlfriend of 12 years.

“Doreen takes care of all my needs,” Mills says. “I can’t possibly begin to tell you how much work she puts in just to keep me on deck.”

Mills’ description of his current self is a great example of who Mills is at his core: a brave and humble man unafraid to confront reality with a dose of what he would call “wise guy” humor.

When asked his secret to a long life, he says, “I avoid moderation,” with a twinkle in his eye.

That moderation avoidance started young for Mills, the 11th child of 13 siblings. Raised in the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, the Mills family was “poor,” in Mills’ words, barely getting by on his father’s cab driver salary, his mother often ill. At age four, his aunt came to visit and, having no kids of her own, asked Mills’ mother if she could take one of the 13 Mills kids “temporarily.”

“So my mother said, ‘take the one in the corner,’” Mills says. “That was me.”

Mills left that day with his aunt and moved to their home in Jamaica, Queens, New York. The following year his mother passed away. “My aunt insisted I live with her,” he says. “My father gave me away.”

Mills described living with his aunt as “unpleasant” and says he tried to run away several times. “I wasn’t a very cooperative kid,” Mills says. “But things worked out and she raised me.”

Mills graduated from the now defunct Andrew Jackson High School in Queens and in 1942, at age 18, enlisted in the Army, moved by the attack on Pearl Harbor. “I’ll always remember that night,” he says. “I said, ‘I’ve got to do something. I’ve got to help my country.’ I wanted to serve so badly.”

During basic training at Fort Belvoir in Fairfax County, Virginia, Mills was rated an expert rifleman, the highest in his training class, which was surprising, given that he’d only shot a gun once in his life prior to enlisting.

“I don’t know how the hell I scored so well on that rifle range,” Mills says. “All the guys from the country couldn’t believe this city kid was outshooting them.”

Mills says he enlisted in the Army specifically to fight on the front lines, and the plan was for him to ship out with his unit to fight in Europe. But in the last week of his training, his sister passed away and he was given an emergency leave to attend her funeral.

When Mills returned to Fort Belvoir, his outfit had shipped out to France, and Mills was eventually deployed to Oahu, Hawaii to help train and prepare troops for the planned invasion of Japan. That assignment kept Mills from active combat, something in hindsight he’s grateful for.

“I kept saying to myself, ‘Thank God,’” he says. “I was trained to be a killer, and I did not have to kill anybody. I think of all the people who lost their lives, they were the enemy. Now they’re allies, right? Japanese, Italians, Germans, they’re all our allies now. Thousands on both sides were wasted in that war. As a result of that experience, I realized the absurdity of man’s conduct when he uses warfare as a means of solving problems.”

In March 1946, Mills was discharged from the Army as a staff sergeant and returned to the States, sailing home under the Golden Gate Bridge on his 21st birthday.

He earned his bachelor's degree from Queens College on the GI bill in 1949 and his master's degree in secondary school administration from Hofstra College in New York in 1960. Mills started teaching art in New York City public schools at an annual salary of $2,400, working several side jobs as a chauffeur, cook and dishwasher to supplement his income. He was promoted to assistant principal at a school in Levittown, New York, and was eventually named principal of an elementary school, a junior high school, and for the last ten years of his career as principal of Copiague High School, in Copiague, New York, where he oversaw 2,000 students and 115 teachers.

Early in his teaching career he met Genevieve Rizzo, whom he married after a somewhat rocky start. 

“Genevieve was beautiful, but she was Italian, and my aunt who raised me was extremely prejudiced against Italians,” Mills said. His aunt interfered in the relationship so much that the two decided to break things off. After a year of hearing from friends and family that he should live his life as he pleased, he bucked his aunt, called Rizzo and asked her to marry him.

“It’s a fun story because so few people get to propose over the phone,” he says. The two were married for 60 years.

Mills retired from academia in 1980 at age 55, and he and Rizzo moved to Marco Island, taking a full month to sail their sailboat “Seal Plus” here from New York. Once in Marco, Mills didn’t slow down. He was a manager at Marco Yachts, a charter captain, painted houses and was a realtor for Coldwell Banker and the Deltona Corporation. He helped found and was the first commodore at Marco Island Yacht Club and served as president of both the Kiwanis and Rotary. To this day, he remains active in Marco’s American Legion Post 404.

Mills and Doreen Hertel met in 2011, shortly after both of their spouses had passed, and began dating. Mills says he has asked Doreen to marry him three times, to no avail. “I’ve got bad habits,” he says with a smile.

The two are pretty much inseparable at this point, eating dinner out every night at their favorite Marco restaurants and dressing up in costumes for special holiday events at local eateries. Mills, an accomplished artist, still spends several hours a day painting.

When asked what his favorite subjects are to paint, he says, “I really can’t answer that because I like to paint anything I see. I do a lot of seascapes and boats. People are exciting, and I do people too.” Last year, he created 16 different paintings as a gift for all the families attending his family’s annual reunion. “I like people, and my biggest gift is to give you a painting,” he says.

For her part, Doreen is an accomplished nature photographer, her photos of birds, sunsets, seascapes and other natural wonders of Marco appearing often in local newspapers. She says she loves to sing karaoke.

“I must confess that ever since I came to Marco, I’ve been treated with such love and affection from so many wonderful people,” Mills says. “I’ve enjoyed my retirement immensely, and I don’t feel like I’m retired.”

In terms of what motivates him, Don says, “First of all, I enjoy life. I have a ball. Every day is fun. I can tell you, you’ve got to make up your mind to concentrate on the positive. Every day I wonder:  what can I do today that’s good?”

“If I get a chance when I pass away, I’d like to bump into my guardian angel, whoever he or she is,” he says. “What a job!”

Mills skydived when he turned 90 and says he’ll do it again on his 100th birthday, with that guardian angel no doubt keeping a watchful eye.