Charles E. Mills Art

Charles E. Mills was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, January 29, 1856, and died December 2, 1956, in Dedham, Mass. After one year at Allegheny College, Mills went to Europe in 1878. There, he joined the Duveneck School and studied in Germany and Italy. Mills returned to the United States and set up a studio in Boston. Mills later spent a year in Paris and again maintained a studio in Boston. In 1888 with his sister and mother, Mills took up his residence at 63 School Street in Dedham and moved his studio to a block in Dedham Square. Mills was a portrait painter, muralist and landscape artist as well as a designer and worker in stained glass. His work can be found in the stained glass windows in Memorial Hall, Harvard College and in Trinity Church. His bibliographical murals of Benjamin Franklin in the Franklin Institute are well known. The following concerns Mills' life aside from his work as an artist. In 1920, Mills bought the duplex house in which he and his sister, Ellen, lived at 63 School Street. They moved into #61 - Five children, mother-in-law, father and mother. The Mills had lived there since 1888, the year he was born. It was not long before they adopted the Mills and they adopted their family. They often said that they regarded our children as their own relatives. As the years went by and they became more feeble, his wife assumed the responsibility for their welfare. Mills' eyesight failed, and he gave up his studio in 1946. Mills was able to get around but could not paint or read. Mills loved flowers and kept a flower garden until he was 98. His sister fell and fractured her hip in 1952, and was obliged to enter a nursing home. Mills had his meals with them until 1954 when he could no longer live alone. Mills entered the same nursing home as his sister and died December 2, 1956. His sister lived three years more and died in 1959, aged 101. Mills kept his mind until death. Mills went to sleep one night and never awakened. Mills was long a familiar and colorful figure in Dedham and was held in affectionate regard by all who recognized his Van Dyke beard and formal dress. The Mills are buried in Allegheny Cemetery, Pittsburgh. The cemetery was once part of the farm of his grandfather, who was in business in Pittsburgh about 1804.