Mildred Hannah Ivanoff
Mildred “Millie” Hannah Ivanoff, passed peacefully at Providence Medical Center on the evening of July 23, 2022, surrounded by family.
Millie was born February 26, 1932, to Samuel and Jessie Otton in Golovin, AK during a winter storm. She was the middle child of nine children, three brothers and five sisters. They had made the decision to move back to Unalakleet when she was two- years-old to be closer to family.
Millie was raised in a traditional subsistence lifestyle up until she attended boarding school to help further her education. She had first attended boarding school as a young child in White Mountain, AK before graduating from Mt. Edgecombe High School in Sitka, AK, where she also worked at the hospital and later met and married her first husband, Donald Harper in 1952. Together they had one child Robin Harper-Caudill, one granddaughter Dawn Harris, three great grandchildren Michael, Malorie, and Kevin Blankenship, and two great-great grandchildren Michael and Aaron Blankenship.
Millie later moved back to Unalakleet in 1963 to help care for her ailing parents. She then met and married her love Ralph Ivanoff on September 1, 1974, after a five-year courtship. Together they raised Dean “Charley” Peterson and granddaughter Dawn.
Millie loved to live a subsistence lifestyle, camping, picnicking upriver, traveling, shopping and visiting with friends and family far and near.
She was an amazing, sassy and loving teacher, mother, wife, grandmother and friend, who believed in God, speaking her mind, and telling the truth. She loved to be in the country, to gather food, or to just picnic with her family.
Millie worked at the Northern Commercial Co. and left to work and manage the UNC General Store as store manager until she retired in 1992, only to become the Chief Babysitter in Charge.
Millie is survived by her daughter Robin Harper-Caudill, stepchildren: Henry with wife Yvonne, Weaver and wife Lucy, Burkher and wife Huda, Herb and wife Heidi, Larry and wife Maggie, Jerry and wife Brenda, Doris, Steve with wife Zoe; Galen, Rick, Art, and Dean and wife Treca; many, many loved grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great grandchildren.
Millie was preceded in death by her parents Sam and Jessie; siblings Ralph Otton, Myrtle Otton, Sophie Wall, Eva Wilson, Beatrice Otton, Henry Otton, Sam Otton Jr. and Lois Meidinger; stepson Henry Ivanoff, and stepdaughter Paula Mae Doty.
