The Milliken Family Tree

A five-generation look back at one of northern Michigan’s most influential families

By Craig Manning | Jan. 20, 2024

If you live in northern Michigan, there’s a very good chance you know the name “Milliken.”

From a key street to a famed auditorium, numerous landmarks in Traverse City bear the Milliken name, and any local history book—or state history book, for that matter—will tell you a bit about how the Traverse City-born William Milliken became the longest-serving governor in Michigan history.

But did you know that the Milliken family also has ties to the origins of numerous key arts organizations in northern Michigan? Or that they are now linked to another family that stands as one of the most famous dynasties in America?

In this week’s Northern Express, we delve into the history, contributions, and far-reaching impact of the Milliken family. For our purposes, the story starts in 1868, when one James Wheelock Milliken first set his sights on Traverse City…

Chapter 1: J.W. and the First Generation of Traverse City Millikens

Born in Denmark, Maine in 1848, James W. Milliken—known better as J.W. Milliken—has the distinction of being the person who brought the Milliken name to northern Michigan in the first place.

J.W. cut his teeth working at a dry goods store in the Maine town of Saco until 1868, when he was recruited—alongside his business partner, Frank Hamilton—to move to Traverse City. The man who recruited him? Smith Barnes, who worked for Perry Hannah, the person generally regarded as “the father of Traverse City,” as a manager at the Hannah, Lay & Co. At the time, Hannah, Lay & Co. was the top department store in northern Michigan and was in need of talent to help it grow. Per the Traverse Area Historical Society (TAHS), Barnes encountered Milliken and Hamilton on a trip to Boston and hired them on the spot after learning of their experience in the retail realm.

Milliken and Hamilton ultimately worked at the Hannah & Lay mercantile for about half a decade before deciding they were ready to strike out on their own and start their own business. While the two were planning to sell clothing and dry goods—retail ventures that would put them in direct competition with their old boss—TAHS records indicate that Perry Hannah “welcomed new competition” and “took great pride in his former employees who left the firm and became successful in their own businesses.” Hannah even put up some of the cash that Milliken and Hamilton would need to get their business started.

So it was that, in 1874, Milliken and Hamilton left Hannah, Lay & Co. and started their own business: Hamilton, Milliken & Co. Their first location was in a building on the southern side of the 200 block of East Front Street, roughly across the street from where the State Theatre stands now. The business proved a roaring success, and Hamilton and Milliken quickly outgrew their original digs. Eventually, they even had to build their own space, a building on the southeast corner of East Front Street and Cass. The building still stands today—albeit in substantially modified form, housing businesses like Espresso Bay, Glik’s, and Critters.

In 1893, Milliken and Hamilton decided to dissolve their partnership. Milliken took one half of the business—and one half of the Front/Cass building—and continued to sell women’s clothing and housewares under the name of J.W. Milliken, Inc. Hamilton took the other half, which sold men’s clothing and sporting goods.

Milliken’s would operate as a retail business for more than a century, eventually spanning locations in Traverse City, Cadillac, Manistee, and Mount Pleasant. The Milliken family sold the business to another department store company, Ulman’s, in 1983, and Ulhman’s sold to Stage Stores in 1996. The local stores continued on under the banner of Stage-Milliken for the next five years, before financial difficulties within the Stage retail empire caused the ultimate shuttering of the shops. Milliken’s took its final bow on Front Street in 2001.

In the midst of his retail success, J.W. also got involved in politics, eventually being elected as state senator in 1897 to fill a vacancy created by the resignation of George G. Covell. He was re-elected to a full term the following November (at the time, state senate terms in Michigan were only two years, as opposed to the four-year terms state senators hold now). A Republican, Milliken served as the state senator for the 27th district, which included Antrim, Benzie, Charlevoix, Grand Traverse, Kalkaska, and Wexford counties. Milliken held his seat until 1900.

As for family, Milliken in 1881 married Callie Thacker, and the two had a son the following year: James Thacker Milliken. James T. was the couple’s only child.

J.W. died suddenly in 1908 at the age of 60, while on a train to New Haven, Connecticut to attend his son’s graduation from Yale University.

Chapter 2: James Thacker Milliken and the Continuation of the Milliken Political Dynasty

While J.W. Milliken spent a brief amount of time in political circles, his legacy is clear: He was a businessman first and foremost. In his obituary from 1908, it reads that J.W. “could not be induced to accept further political honors” after his relatively brief tenure in the state senate.

His son, however, reversed the equation: While James Thacker carried on the family business that his father had started, his legacy would ultimately revolve primarily around political and public service achievements.

James T. was the first of many Millikens to attend and graduate from Traverse City public schools, after which he attended Olivet College in Michigan and then Yale University. In June of 1912, James T. married Hildegarde Grawn of Mount Pleasant. The couple would go on to have three children: John Milliken in 1920; William Milliken in 1922; and Ruth Milliken in 1923. James T. returned to his home in Traverse City, where he took over leadership of the Milliken’s department store empire.

James T.’s legacy starts around the time that he began his political rise. In 1920, the same year that his first son was born, James became the first-ever president of the Traverse City Rotary Club, a position he held until 1922. From 1923 to 1928, he served as mayor of Traverse City. And in 1931, shortly after leaving the mayor’s office, Milliken became the president of the Traverse City Chamber of Commerce.

Around this time, James also sat on the Traverse City Board of Education, including as president of the board. Notably, Hildegarde Milliken also served on the school board, making her the first woman ever elected to public office in Traverse City.

James Thacker’s political career reached its pinnacle in 1941, when he became the second Milliken elected to the Michigan Senate. A Republican like his father, James spent nine years in the senate, winning four re-election bids before ultimately leaving office in January of 1950.
James lived until 1952, when he passed away at the age of 70 from a heart attack. He’s buried here in Traverse City at Oakwood Cemetery.

Chapter 3: A Governor for the People

It was the second son of James Thacker Milliken and Hildegarde Grawn Milliken who would go on to become the most famous Milliken of all. (So far, at least.)

Born in 1922, William Grawn Milliken followed in his dad’s footsteps: After graduating from Traverse City Senior High School in 1940, William headed off to New Haven, Connecticut to enroll at his father’s alma mater, Yale University. Soon, he met and struck up a relationship with his future wife, Helen Wallbank, a student at Smith College in Massachusetts—though, their courtship and William’s studies were interrupted when the United States became involved in the second World War after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

In 1942, William Milliken enlisted in the Army Air Corps. Over the course of the war, Milliken flew 50 missions as part of a 10-man crew on a B-24 Liberator, a heavy type of bomber. Milliken’s role on the crew? Waist gunner, the person responsible for defending the aircraft from enemy fighter planes. Those missions were dangerous, and two of the bombers Milliken on which Milliken served ended up crashing—one during takeoff and the other at landing. On another mission, Milliken had to bail out of a bomber that had been damaged by enemy fire, suffering a wound to the stomach in the process. By the end of the war, Milliken had been promoted to the rank of staff sergeant and received numerous military honors, including the Air Medal and the Purple Heart.

Milliken went home in 1945, where he resumed his studies at Yale, and, in October of that year, one month after the conclusion of the war, he married Helen Wallbank. The union was a long time coming for the couple, who reportedly delayed their wedding six times due to William’s military commitments.

After Milliken graduated from Yale in the spring of 1946, the newlyweds moved back to Traverse City, where they started their family: their son, William Milliken Jr., was born that October, while their daughter, Elaine, came along in June 1948.

William went to work for the family business alongside his father, but became president of the company after his dad died in 1952. It wasn’t until the following decade that he entered the political domain. Though he’d served on the Michigan Waterways Commission, thanks to a 1947 appointment by Governor Kim Sigler, William didn’t run for office until 1960, when he clinched the same state senate seat previously held by his father and grandfather. He won re-election in 1962, and soon ascended to the level of senate majority floor leader.

In 1965, Milliken took his political career to the next level, winning an election to become the state’s 54th lieutenant governor. That post turned out to be significant: Milliken was serving under Governor George W. Romney, the former chairman and president of American Motors, a highly-touted prospect for the United States presidency and the father of eventual presidential candidate, Mitt Romney.

Romney did indeed run for president in 1968, challenging former Vice President Richard Nixon for the Republican nomination. While he ended up withdrawing from the race relatively early—he bowed out in February of 1968, leaving other candidates like Ronald Reagan and Nelson Rockefeller to battle Nixon—he stayed on the radar for the eventual president-elect, and soon scored a slot in President Nixon’s cabinet.

Romney resigned as governor of Michigan on January 22, 1969, the same day he was sworn in as secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The resignation meant that Michigan’s lieutenant governor would ascend to leadership of the state, and so began William Milliken’s stint as the 44th governor of Michigan.

Milliken served out the remainder of Romney’s gubernatorial term, then won re-election to a proper four-year term in 1970. He went on to win two more re-election bids in 1974 and 1978 before finally leaving the governor’s mansion in January 1982. His 14 years of leadership made Milliken the longest-serving governor in Michigan history, a record unlikely ever to be broken, given a 1992 amendment to the state constitution that imposed a lifetime limit of two four-year terms.

An obituary published by The New York Times after William Milliken passed away in 2019 highlighted a remark he made at a joint legislative session just days before he became governor: “It is my greatest hope that this administration will be known for its compassion, its idealism, its candor, and its toughness in the pursuit of public ends.”

The Times obituary went on to note that the vision Milliken described “was largely borne out,” highlighting his administration’s investments in urban housing and education, its defense of “auto industry jobs and profits in the wake of the 1973-74 Arab oil embargo,” its work to implement new environmental protections throughout the state, and its efforts toward affirmative action and greater racial equality. Milliken was able to score these and other wins, the Times argued, because of “his soft-spoken graciousness and decency and a talent for building political bridges.”

That across-the-aisle sensibility didn’t fade as Milliken grew older. In 2004, years after leaving office, Milliken drew attention—and outrage from his fellow Republicans—when he endorsed John Kerry, the Democratic nominee for president, over incumbent George W. Bush. Milliken criticized Bush for “pandering to the extreme right wing” and for exacerbating “the polarization and the strident, uncivil tone of much of what passes for political discourse in this country today.”

Even more inflammatory to his GOP party mates, ahead of the 2016 presidential election, Milliken endorsed Democrat Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump, stating: “This nation has long prided itself on its abiding commitments to tolerance, civility and equality. We face a critically important choice in this year’s presidential election that will define whether we maintain our commitment to those ideals or embark on a path that has doomed other governments and nations throughout history. I am saddened and dismayed that the Republican Party this year has nominated a candidate who has repeatedly demonstrated that he does not embrace those ideals.”

The endorsement prompted the Grand Traverse County GOP to pass a controversial resolution that Milliken no longer be recognized as a Republican. Traverse City Republican Jason Gillman, who offered the resolution, argued that Milliken’s act of speaking “from the bully pulpit” and endorsing “the other side” was “dishonest” and “not right,” and suggested that Milliken was “confused about what a Republican really is.”

Milliken died on October 18, 2019, at the age of 97. In a previously-recorded video played at his memorial service, Milliken spoke of what he hoped would be his legacy: “As someone who tried to do the right thing, who tried to advance the cause of racial equality in our state, and who tried to put intense partisanship aside to do what I felt was in the best interest as Michigan as a whole, if I can have somewhat of that reputation as a governor having served longer than any other governor in state history, I will be totally content.”

Chapter 3.5: An Impressive Generation

While William Milliken pulled a lot of the spotlight during his lifetime, his wife, brother, and sister-in-law also forged strong legacies of their own.

As the longest-serving first lady in Michigan history, Helen Milliken came to be known as far more than just the governor’s wife. When Helen died of cancer in 2012, at the age of 89, the Associated Press summed up her tenure in Lansing thusly: “Early in her husband’s political career, [Helen] dutifully played the role of an unassuming and supportive spouse. But she evolved into an outspoken advocate of issues close to her heart during her record 14 years as Michigan first lady.”

Chief among those issues: feminism and women’s rights, abortion rights, and environmental conservation. In particular, Helen was a fierce advocate for the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), the still-never-ratified constitutional amendment that would bar states from discriminating against anyone on the basis of sex. In 1980, ahead of that year’s Republican national convention—which was to be held in Detroit—the party removed language supporting the ERA from its convention platform. Helen Milliken responded by boycotting the event, opting to attend a pro-ERA rally instead.

Helen Milliken’s beliefs were so progressive that, in 1994, she got an unprecedented invitation: Democrat Howard Wolpe, running for governor against eventual victor John Engler, asked Helen to cross party lines and become his running mate. She declined the offer, and Wolpe moved on to his next choice: State Senator (and eventual United States Senator) Debbie Stabenow.

William’s older brother, Dr. John Milliken, was breaking barriers before he even graduated from high school. According to John’s obituary—he passed away in 2008—he was not only the first-ever student governor at Traverse City Senior High School, but also someone who was already helping push medical care forward in northern Michigan long before he became a doctor himself. “As a teenager, he was one of two people who could operate the X-ray machine at the State Hospital,” John’s obituary reads.

Perhaps not surprisingly, John ended up in the healthcare profession, getting his undergraduate degree from Amherst College in Massachusetts before heading to medical school at Wayne State University. John interned or worked at numerous medical institutions in the early years of his career and also served as a captain in the army during World War II.

In 1950, John moved back to Traverse City with his wife Elnora Toldo of Chisholm, Massachusetts, who he’d met during his time at Wayne State. John went into private practice in the specialty of internal medicine, building his practice over the years into a multi-physician clinic called the Milliken Medical Group. Located right next door to Munson Medical Center, the Milliken Medical Group still exists today, as a key internal medicine clinic within the Munson system.

Per John’s obituary, his focus on incorporating cutting-edge technologies into his practice made him “a local pioneer in the practice of medicine” who was “always interested in finding ways to better serve patients.” Notably, his practice was one of the first in northern Michigan to offer X-ray and lab services, and even one of the first to use computers. The office also “created outreach programs using facsimile communications to read EKGs for hospitals as far aways as those in the Upper Peninsula.”

In addition to his 54-year career in medicine, John Milliken served a term on the city commission, from 1961 to 1965. A key moment of his tenure, as identified in his obituary, came when he cast “the sole vote against building the power plant on the bay, saying the city would someday regret it.” (That power plant was torn down in 2005 to make way for the Open Space.)

John was also a family man: He and Elnora had five children, several of whom still live (and practice medicine) in Traverse City.

Where John was a trailblazer in medicine, Elnora proved to be one of the most pivotal figures in the development of Traverse City’s arts scene. A graduate of Northwestern University, with a music major in piano and violin, Elnora met John while teaching music in Detroit’s public schools.

After she and John married in 1944, Elnora followed her husband around the country to his various internships, residencies, jobs, and military postings, always finding “a symphony or sometimes two her three” wherever they moved, per her obituary (Elnora passed away in 2019). The move to Traverse City threw a wrench in that routine, though, given that the city had no orchestra at the time. Undeterred, Elnora “raised money, recruited other musicians, and in 1952, debuted the first concert performed by the orchestra that is known today as the Traverse Symphony Orchestra (TSO).”

TSO is one of three local organizations that arguably would not exist had it not been for Elnora Milliken. Another is the Old Town Playhouse, and the organization’s website lists the following milestone, from April 1960, as its starting point: “Elnora Milliken gathered Interlochen faculty and 40 local theatre buffs to form the Traverse City Civic Players and staged You Can’t Take It With You at a local school.” The Players would officially become the Old Town Playhouse in the mid-1970s, after purchasing the First Christian Church building on Eighth Street that still serves as the organization’s home.

Elnora was also involved in the early planning efforts that led to the creation of the Botanic Garden at Historic Barns Park.

Elnora’s contributions to the local arts community didn’t go unnoticed: In 2011, she received the Traverse City Area Chamber of Commerce’s prestigious Distinguished Service Award, with the chamber dubbing her a “pioneer in spirit and an artist at heart” and praising her work to establish “the platform upon which other arts offerings have flourished” in Traverse City and beyond.

Chapter 4: The Current Generations

As of 2019, William, Helen, John, and Elnora have all passed away, but the Milliken family carries on—both locally and abroad.

William and Helen had two children—Bill and Elaine—while John and Elnora had five: Sherry, James, Wendy, Penny, and John Peter. Two of those people are no longer with us: Wendy died in 1958, when she was just three years old, while Elaine died of cancer in 1993.

Elaine was a noted attorney, graduating from University of Michigan Law School, working for a time in the public defender’s office in Detroit, and then moving to Washington, D.C. to become chief counsel to the Senate Rules Committee. She was also an activist who worked to advance women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights, human rights, and environmental causes. In Helen’s Associated Press obituary, Elaine is credited with influencing her mother’s decision “to take a stand for women’s equality.” An obituary for Elaine herself, meanwhile, lists “her work with the Michigan Rape Reform Task Force” as one of her greatest accomplishments. That task force “produced Michigan’s current criminal sexual conduct act – a model that was used in many other states.”

As for the other children of William/Helen and John/Elnora: Bill Milliken owns the Ann Arbor-based Milliken Realty Company, a full-service commercial real estate firm, and is a past president of the Michigan Association of REALTORS®.

Sherry Reum is a well-known Chicago-based philanthropist who has come into the limelight in recent years due to the fame of one of her children (more on that to come).

Based in the Seattle area, Penny got her MBA at Stanford University and worked for years in marketing at Disney before ascending to her current role as CEO of HeR Interactive, the video game company that develops games based on the Nancy Drew book series. Penny is also a past board member of the Traverse City Film Festival.

Finally, James and John Peter (who goes by JP) both live and work in Traverse City as members of the local healthcare community—James as a pulmonologist, JP as a gastroenterologist. Christine Walkowiak, a physician’s assistant who works at Munson’s Walk-In Clinic, is also a Milliken: her parents are James and MaryBeth.

Christine is one of nine grandchildren who call John and Elnora Milliken their grandparents. She, her brother Jay, and the children of JP and his wife, Darcy—Jack, Maggie, and Kelly—all grew up in Traverse City and graduated from Traverse City Central High School, many of them as standout tennis players. Jay, like Christine, also still lives locally, and is a partner in the Old Mission Distilling/Mission Proper project that has recently taken root at the Seven Hills center on Old Mission Peninsula.

Penny also has one daughter, Jennifer Rubiello, while Sherry and her late husband, Robert Reum, have three: Courtney, Carter, and Halle. Notably, the Reum family has risen to public prominence in recent years, thanks to the fact that, in November 2021, Carter married a certain famous media personality: Paris Hilton.

Family dynasty, meet family dynasty.