Mildred “Millie” Brown Sanders was born in Marshall, Texas on or around September 3, 1892. She was the daughter of Fulton Brown and Penny Pettiway. It was reported that her father was a full-blooded Cherokee Indian. He did work at the home of Dr. Addison Sears of Marshall. By the 1900 Census around age 7, Millie was living in Rosborough Springs in the southern part of Harrison County with her grandparents, Israel and Phena Lane.
On November 29, 1916, Millie married Captain Chester A. Sanders in El Paso, Texas. Chester was stationed overseas shortly after their marriage, and they couple made their home in the Philippines. Millie quickly picked up the language and was sometimes mistaken as Filipino. Millie also ran a boarding house in Manila and served Southern-style cooking from America. Many of the American officers who stayed with her began affectionately calling her Ma Sanders.
Tensions around the globe rose in 1939 and a second world war soon broke out. Millie watched as the Japanese prepared for invasion, the death march from Corregidor through Manila (some of whom she recognized as former boarders) and she listened on the radio as General Jonathan Wainwright surrendered his forces. She knew she could be in a lot of trouble and had no means of escaping the war-torn area.
Millie carried food to American prisoners and quietly became a member of the underground resistance. She soon became a spy carrying messages in and out of the prisoner of war camps. As many thought that she was Filipino, she gathered little attention coming and going. Millie was later captured passing notes and became a prisoner herself at the Santo Tomas civilian internment camp.
She endured many horrors during her imprisonment including a broken spine, a wrenched knee, and she also developed arthritis in the dank prison camp. One time her captors came to Millie and ordered her to face the wall, one twisting her arm until it popped out of socket. “Go ahead and kill me if you’re going to, but I won’t face the wall. I’m going to watch you do it like a soldier,” she recounted in a later interview. They snapped their guns to their shoulders, then slowly lowered them again. She said the leader told her that she was too brave a woman to die, but that if she fell out of line that the next time she would be executed.
On September 2, 1945 the war ended. Divorced from Chester (possibly just before the war started), Millie returned to Marshall. She was decorated with four service ribbons including a commendation ribbon from General Douglas MacArthur for her courage and fortitude materially contributing to the eventual military success in the Philippines. She had also been sent a rosary blessed by Pope Pius XII. What she treasured most were her letters from soldiers she knew or had helped.
On January 11, 1946, Millie spoke at Bishop College in Marshall about her time in the war and her 28 years in the Philippines. Hundreds of people from Marshall and the surrounding area came to hear her speak. Her loyalty to her country, her faith in God, and stories of the men whose lives she had saved – Millie held the audience captivated with her tales.
Her tortured existence under occupation in Manila weighed heavily on Ma Sanders, and shortly after her return to Marshall she sought out treatment to calm her mind and nerves in Pasadena, California. She lived in a small shack at 625 Winona Avenue with $20 of her $45 relief check going for rent. Millie was ineligible to live in a veteran’s home as she was not an active part of the military during the war, and when asked about it she said she didn’t even want to try and apply – she didn’t want to take it away from “someone who deserves it more than me. I’m thankful to be here in America. You can say what you want about it, but I know. There’s no other place.”
Millie passed away in Los Angeles, California on April 29, 1961.
A short film honoring Millie Brown Sanders’ extraordinary life is available for viewing at our Service & Sacrifice military exhibit inside the Memorial City Hall Performance Center on the square in downtown Marshall.
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