Mildred Frances Minter (Milly) Jewell

Former Tiburon resident Mildred Frances Minter (Milly) Jewell, age 102, died peacefully with her daughters at her side on July 3, 2026, at her home in The Tamalpais/Sequoia Living senior residence in Greenbrae, California.

Milly Jewell was born on April 25, 1924, in Cedar County, Missouri, to Virgil Artemis Minter and Ada Byrd Minter (née Reid). She earned her bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri at Columbia, then moved to Chicago to work in communications for the National Safety Council. In Chicago, she met her future husband, Albert Hartwell Jewell Jr., then a medical student at Northwestern. They married in 1952 during Dr. Jewell’s surgery residency in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and moved to Marin County, California, in 1959.

Milly was a homemaker and active local volunteer. In the early 1970s, she spearheaded a drive to get a produce truck to come to her neighborhood so neighbors could buy produce directly from the farmers — a precursor to CSA farm boxes. With her keen interest in good food and trying new recipes, she cooked her way through Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking.” She volunteered in the Reed schools, her daughters’ Girl Scout troops, the Marin Art & Garden Center, the Marin County Free Library, the Tiburon Landmarks Society, and the Culinary Carnival, an annual event to raise money for Children’s Garden. She was also a longtime supporter of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts.

With her husband, Milly made numerous opera-focused trips to Europe and travelled as well in Asia and Australia. In her later years, she hiked in the Sierras and abroad, and frequently walked the Tiburon bike path with her Belvedere and Tiburon friends, who informally called their group “The Fallen Arches.” After she and her husband moved to The Tamalpais in 1997, she became an avid player of bridge, Chinese-style Mahjongg, and gin rummy. Throughout her life, Milly was a voracious reader, often reading three books a week. The last book she finished, in the weeks before her death, was the just-published novel “Whistler” by Ann Patchett. She especially enjoyed poetry, writing some of her own and memorizing the poetry of others. She often had the perfect impromptu quote from Shakespeare, Alexander Pope, or Rilke (and, at parties, Ogden Nash or a limerick or two). Above all, she was devoted to each of her three grandsons, with whom she enjoyed close individual relationships of mutual adoration.

Milly was predeceased by her husband of 58 years, A. Hartwell (Hart) Jewell, M.D. She is survived by her two daughters, Phyllis Jewell (Wand) of Tiburon, California, and Martha Jewell Loveless of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California; their husbands, C. Nickolaus Wand and Geoffrey Loveless; her grandchildren; her grandchildren’s spouses; and her great-grandchildren.

At Milly’s request, there will not be a funeral or memorial service. Her remains will be interred at Mount Tamalpais Cemetery in San Rafael. Memorial contributions may be made to the Friends of the Marin County Free Library (3501 Civic Center Drive, Suite 414, San Rafael, CA 94903 | https://marinlibraryfriends.org | Tax ID: 23-7098721) and/or By the Bay Health (By the Bay Health, 17 E. Sir Francis Drake Blvd., Larkspur, CA 94939 | https://bythebayhealth.org/ways-to-give | Tax ID: 94-2890791).