Shared links to the past

The world is much smaller than many people realize.

Ron and Betty Mills, who live at Wellspring Assisted Living in Hayden, and Verda Newell, a resident of another assisted living residence in Coeur d'Alene, are complete strangers who recently discovered their families are linked in history.

It all started with the serendipitous work of a local public historian who uncovered the connections.

Sara Jane Ruggles, with Auburn Crest Hospice, recorded the oral history of the Hayden couple Ron Mills, 86, and wife Betty, 83, in a series of fall 2022 interviews. In December, she began working with Verda Newell, 95, of Coeur d'Alene to record her story as well.

Ron mentioned his beloved uncle, Charlie Mellor, was captured by the Japanese when he was a civilian working for the Morrison-Knudsen Company building the Naval air base on Wake Island, an atoll of coral in the Pacific Ocean near Guam, during World War II. This was in December 1941, just after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

"I spent a lot of time praying for him when I was a kid," Ron said.

Newell mentioned she had two brothers-in-law, Emmett and Glenn Newell, who were also Morrison-Knudsen Company civilian employees who became prisoners of war after they were captured on Wake Island.

“I went, ‘Wait a minute, that sounds really familiar,’” Ruggles said. "I started doing some digging."

It turned out that Mellor and the Newell brothers were captured at the same time, after the civilians on the island held off Japanese forces for two weeks.

"It was a chance of a chance of a chance," Ruggles said. "The luck of the draw."

"Or a divine setup," said Verda Newell's daughter, Nikki Warnick.

Hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, a group of Japanese bomber planes attacked Wake Island to take out defenses. They anticipated an easy takeover.

"What they didn’t expect was the 400 U.S. Marines and over 1,200 Morrison-Knudsen employees taking up arms side by side and successfully defending the island until their surrender on Dec. 23 when the defenders found out the fleet from Pearl Harbor was not able to bring reinforcements," Ruggles said.

She found a report published by the Pacific Island Employees Foundation in 1945 to provide families with information about the events that took place when the island became occupied by the Japanese military.

Glenn and Emmett Newell’s names are found on page 42. Charles Mellor’s name is on the next page, where yearbook-style photos of all three men are practically right next to each other.

“That’s when the hair stood up on the back of my neck,” Ruggles said. "There’s a reason for all of this.”

The Mills and Newell families gathered Tuesday afternoon at Wellspring Meadows Assisted Living in Hayden to meet each other and share stories of their loved ones, who survived being prisoners of war, but not without physical and emotional scars they'd carry with them for life.

“Glenn was 18 and Emmett was 20” when they were taken, Verda Newell said.

“That’s too damn young," Ron Mills responded.

He looked over a photo of Mellor.

"He was my uncle, and he ended up being a good friend,” Ron said, his voice quavering.

Mellor, from Idaho City, and the Newell boys, from Ola, another Idaho town, grew up about 60 miles from each other.

"They must have been very adventurous young men, because they leave their small towns in Idaho with Morrison-Knudsen all the way across the world, then they live through this together," Verda's other daughter Julie Yetter said. "It’s kind of shocking.”

Ron, Betty and their daughter Dina Mills-Hourlland shared how "Uncle Charlie" Mellor was a character, even after his time as a POW.

“He was a social guy,” Dina said. “He had a wooden disk, and we’d go out on the water on the boat and he’d put a stool on the wooden disk and we’d pull him behind the boat so he could water ski. And they weren’t hooked together. He’d waterski on this disk sitting on this stool, that’s a memory of him."

Verda Newell described Glenn Newell as "just a happy warrior."

"Uncle Glenn was a little bit of a prankster," Warnick said. "He would set people up so that he could make some kind of joke about what they'd say."

"I bet he and Charlie were friends," Betty Mills said, "especially since they came from the same area. They probably knew people in common, and they sound like they were similar personalities, which is probably what helped them get through that horrible time."

Emmett kept a highly guarded diary while he was a POW, Ruggles said.

"He would go to the little makeshift library and rip the end papers out of the books and use that for his diary," she said. "If he was caught, it would have been instant death."

Prisoners kept journals on onion skins — anything they could find. Glenn wrote a memoir with his son David later on in life.

While in a prison camp, Mellor wrote his name and address on a washroom wall. Another prisoner made note of it and when he was released before Mellor, he let the Idaho City Police know so they could let Mellor's family know he was alive.

Glenn Newell died Dec. 18, 2014. Emmett Newell died Jan. 27, 1987. Mellor died Feb. 13.

They may be gone, but their stories have been immortalized — through their acts of bravery, through their writings and through the memories of their loved ones.

"It's been very educational, very touching, very emotional," Betty Mills said.