The Mills Siblings Unexpected Return to Croquet

Thursday was my anniversary, and I had a delightful evening planned after a long, tedious, and very hot day at work: A French restaurant and tickets to The King and I. It sounded like that final part would be the only thing interesting on such a day.

Not so! Out of the mailbox came a thin periodical-sized envelope with no return address and Royal Mail postage. At that point I was very excited!

Tearing it open eagerly, I slid out a copy of the April/May issue of the Croquet Gazette and was thrilled to see in the lower left hand corner of the cover: "Who Is George Mills: How the post WWII era of croquet in England came to be of great interest to a staunch baseball fan in the United States."

The beautifully illustrated article can be found on pages 14 and 15.

I have written for publication before, for several years having been The Arts columnist and photographer for the City Pulse newspaper in Lansing, Michigan, while I taught at Michigan State University. Just about the only things I couldn't cover for that paper were the openings of exhibitions of my own work.

I'll admit, this feels very different, and I'm extremely grateful to the Croquet Association for the opportunity to share some of my research. I am also happy for George, Agnes, and Violet Mills, who all passed childless and were, for the most part, forgotten. I suspect that, wherever they are, they had thought their association with the sport of croquet had long passed.

Thank you again to everyone at the CA for allowing the Mills back into the game!