In addition, Irene and Sterling spent many years exploring much of the United States and Canada in their RV. Sterling and Irene also built a home in Garden City Beach, S.C., where they made many friends and were active members of the Belin Methodist Church. Irene hosted many happy events at the family cabins on Concord Pond and Lake Christopher. Her siblings, and extended family - the Applebee, Smith, and Mills relatives- were also a great joy in her life. Her devotion to Sterling never wavered and her love for her four children, their spouses, her grandchildren, and great-grandchildren was unconditional. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, she expanded her hospitality by running the family homestead as Field View Bed & Breakfast. In the late 1970s to early 1980s, Irene owned the China Doll Shop and enjoyed attending many doll shows. Irene was instrumental to the family business, Penley and Mills, Inc., running errands, keeping books, and inviting many into her home, offering hospitality to employees and those buying land. She also attended many of their sports events, music, and drama performances. Irene fostered her children’s interests, driving them near and far for dance, ski, piano, and magic lessons. She maintained beautiful window boxes and lined the front entry walkway with petunias. Irene also enjoyed creating arts and crafts, including some drawings, as well as gardening and decorating her homes. Her hobbies included bottle collecting, antiquing, walking with friends, aerobics, sewing beautiful clothes for her family, and knitting sweaters, afghans, and baby blankets. She sang in several bands while Sterling played his trumpet and was known for her renditions of “Bill Bailey” and “Sentimental Journey”. Irene possessed a lovely singing voice, which she showcased in church and local area cantatas, performing many “O Holy Night” solos at Christmas time. She was also active in the Grange and Extension group and cooked for many local organizations events. Irene volunteered in her children’s schools and served as a den mother for Boy Scouts and a troop leader for Girl Scouts. Everyone enjoyed her homemade baked goods, which included family favorites of bread, yeast rolls, molasses and ginger snap cookies, cream puffs, whoopie pies, apple pies, fried dough, and popovers. Irene was a wonderful wife, mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother. Over the next four years and four months, the couple became loving parents to Timothy, Tamara, Jeffery and Betsey. They married in June 1956, and after living in the San Diego area of California where Sterling was stationed in the Navy, the house on Rumford Avenue in Bryant Pond became their home for 50 years. While attending Lee Academy, Irene met the love of her life, Sterling Mills. Despite these traumatic events, she always saw the glass more than half-full. Irene was only 15 when her father passed away, and just a couple of years later, the family home burned down. She attended Lee Academy and graduated from Mattawamkaeg High School in Lincoln in 1955. 21, 1937, in Enfield, to her parents, Sylvan and Hazel Applebee. SOUTH PARIS – Irene (Applebee) Mills passed away peacefully at the Maine Veteran’s Home on Sunday, April 30, 2023.
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