Dorothy Jewel Spees Millard, age 101, passed away on Sunday, May 4, 2025, comforted by her family and listening to the great hymns of her faith. 

Funeral services are scheduled for 2:00 p.m., May 7, 2025, at First Baptist Church, Cooper. Visitation will be at 1:00 at the church. 

Dorothy was born March 28, 1924, in the Posey community of Hopkins County, Texas to Percival T. and Lucy Dixon Spees.  She married Leo G. Millard on November 25, 1945. 

 Dorothy graduated from Cooper High School and Draughn’s Business College.  During the war years, she worked at the Quartermaster Depot in Ft Worth, a distribution point and supply center for the US Army.  After her marriage she worked for several attorneys in Austin at the State Capitol.  She reared four children, and when the youngest started school, Dorothy went to work for the Dept. of Human Resources in the Delta County Courthouse.   

Church work and volunteering added much meaning to Dorothy’s life. She was a member of Antioch Baptist Church until it was disbanded and then she and Leo joined First Baptist in Cooper. She taught Sunday School to various age groups at both churches.  

 After retirement, Dorothy was a volunteer at   St. Joseph Hospital in Paris, and she served as a hospice volunteer for ten years in Delta, Hopkins, and Lamar counties; she went above and beyond by taking her homemade pies, brownies, or cookies to her new friends. 

Dorothy was preceded in death by Leo Millard, her husband of seventy years, in 2016; her son Mark Alan Millard in 1990; her daughter Melinda Millard Ray in 1991; and two granddaughters, Emily Ray Nardo in 2015, and Suzanne Heald Kaplan in 2019. 

She is survived by her daughters, Marilyn Millard Thurman and Ron, and Melissa Millard all of Cooper; grandchildren Amanda Thurman Riley and Brandon, Brad Thurman and Amanda, Jeri Lynn Heald Ingram and Ian, Whitney Heald, Rachael Ray, Cassy Millard Scally, and her grandsons by choice, James Ray and Patrick Ray. 

You may pay your respects online at www.deltafuneralhome.com 

Services entrusted to Delta Funeral Home; Interment at Oaklawn Cemetery.