Milburn Green and Verla May (Cook) Hix Part Three

Milburn Green and Verla May (Cook) Hix

We next moved back to Grant and Milburn rented the farm of his Uncle Warren Webster.  This farm was right next to the one Milburn had grown up on and we lived just down the lane behind where Junius Taylor now lives.  In the spring of 1948, a farm in Coltman came up for sale and we decided to buy it, which we did with the help of a loan from Wayne Boam and the bank.  We lived in a big old lava rock house which was too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter, but it was ours and we were happy to have our own house for the first time.  We raised 25 acres of potatoes that first year and sold them right out of the field for almost enough to pay off what we owed for the farm.  It was the most money we ever made on the farm in one year.  

Milburn was not very active in the church during those first years in Coltman, but the people there kept encouraging him and inviting him and finally in 1958, he started going to church and never looked back after that.  When Veldon married Arlene Nelson in August of 1959, he had a recommend and was able to go to the

temple with them.  I served in all the organizations of the church, Primary, Sunday School and Relief Society and Milburn was a Ward Teaching Supervisor for many years and his group had 100% visits for a period of 18 months.  He also served many years Finance Clerk of the Coltman Ward.  

After Milburn retired from farming and sold the farm to Roger Stucki, we worked together for many years as custodians for the Coltman Church.  In 1978, we were called to serve in the Montana Billings Mission and spent 18 months working with the Indians on reservations in Browning and Lame Deer, Montana and in Riverton, Wyoming.  We greatly enjoyed our missionary service and learned to love the Indian people very much.  We didn’t have a great deal of success in converting them, but felt we left them with a positive picture of the church.  We were also privileged to serve as temple workers in the Idaho Falls Temple during the time when live sessions were used and all the parts were played by temple workers.  I was so proud of Milburn; he was able to learn all the parts to the temple ceremony and I never once heard him make a mistake. 

During our later years, we were able to travel some and we enjoyed this very much.  The highlight was to visit Hawaii and for Milburn to go back to the Schofield Barracks where he had served in the army as a young man.  As we grew older our health started to fail us.  I got so I couldn’t remember things very well and Milburn had to remind me of the things that needed to be done.  Then he fell one night and broke his hip and ended up in the hospital.  After surgery to repair his hip he needed to be in a wheelchair for a time and so we went to the Lincoln Court Assisted Living Center in Idaho Falls.  It took us a while to get comfortable there, but we grew to like it and decided to sell our house and stay there.  We eventually got to the point where we needed more care and went for a time to the Beehive Home on 1^st Street in Idaho Falls.  This was not a very good experience for us, as Milburn fell and broke his arm and was in the hospital and then had to go to the Good Samaritan Center for therapy. 

While he was there, I moved to the small rest home in Grant and Milburn joined me there later.  This was a good place for us, only a few other people and it was quiet and peaceful.  By this time, both of us were having a hard time remembering things, even sometimes didn’t recognize our family members.  I fell ill one night and passed away early on the morning of 25 July 1999 and Milburn followed soon after on 23 December 1999.  We are buried side by side in the cemetery in Grant, back home at last.