At 97, she's the eldest of her many sisters in the Battlefords who have found being a part of the international women's sorority Beta Sigma Phi enriches their lives.
In fact, for Gert Millbank, it's been doing so since 1946, the year the sorority first came to the Battlefords.
Wearing her "best little black dress and a smile" for the evening's scheduled photo opportunity, Millbank was among the guests at the Beginning Day Event hosted by the Laureate Kappa chapter last week at the Chapel Gallery.
Millbank is a member of Xi Master, one of four local chapters, but as the only remaining charter member of the original Battlefords chapter, and with nine-plus decades of experience to share, she's a favourite among all her sisters.
Millbank's association with the international women's organization began more than 66 years ago. At that time, 45 women formed Kappa chapter of Beta Sigma Phi.
Beta Sigma Phi is a non-academic international women's social, cultural, and service organization. From its founding in Kansas, the organization has spread to every state of the United States, to every Canadian province, and to 30 other countries. There are now 200,000 members in chapters around the world.
Millbank remembers how it all began in North Battleford. An American woman, Betty Tolhurst, arrived in the autumn of 1946 and proceeded to walk first up then down the two blocks of King Street and Main Street, today's 101st and 100th Streets respectively, stopping in every beauty parlor, pharmacy, doctor's office and retail store along the way. A representative of the Beta Sigma Phi organization, Tolhurst invited all young ladies from 18 up into their 20s to join her at an evening meeting at the Auditorium Hotel (long since destroyed by fire, Millbank points out) where they would find out about a sorority whose motto was Life, Learning and Friendship.
Of course Tolhurst found herself at Milbanke Flowers, on the same site it occupies today, where then 31-year-old Gert Millbank tended the store she had taken over in 1938 from her parents. Lydia and Ralph Salzgeber, originally of Salzburg, Austria. established the original greenhouse and flower shop in 1913 and relocated to the business to its present location in 1916.
At Milbanke Flowers, Tolhurst was able to obtain from the proprietor the names of several young ladies who resided in various suites above downtown businesses. Her store was among those businesses, says Millbank; during wartime her parents had divided the space up for a number of rooms for rent. While the Commonwealth Air Training Program had a base in North Battleford, young airmen had been among those who stayed there.
"It was like Grand Central Station!" says Millbank today.
Tolhurst's 1946 visit to the flower shop also included an order for 30 yellow roses for her guests.
It was an unusual order for the post-wartime economy, so, curious, Millbank asked what they were for. When she learned about the organization being formed, she asked if she could be a part of it ,too.
One has to remember, says Millbank today, North Battleford was still feeling the effects of the Second World War. Many young people, including Millbank's childhood friends and school mates had left the city and never returned. Soldiers had been lost in combat. Some had decided to settle elsewhere when they returned, and other young men and women, not involved in the fighting, had moved away to places where wartime employment could be found. Many didn't come back.
Although she was a businessperson, wife and mother, she also craved the kind of friendships she lost when so many young people had moved away from her home community. This new sorority sounded like something she would like to join.
She was devastated when Tolhurst said, "Oh, no, my dear. You are too old."
But all was not lost. A few days later Mrs. Tolhurst returned and asked if she would like to become the new chapter's Social Sponsor, which Millbank explains was essentially the chaperone's position, in keeping with her being older than the other new members.
That began her history with Beta Sigma Phi, to which she remained a loyal and conscientious sister, becoming a charter member of five different chapters, and helping to establish other chapters, including Lloydminster's in 1951.
Helping to get Beta Sigma Phi established in Lloydminster is one of many stories she can relate from her history with the organization.
As told by her Xi Master sister Lorna Mclean in the April 2007 edition of sorority publication The Torch, delegates at convention in Lloydminster made a special trip to North Battleford to fetch Millbank, then 92, so she could tell her story about helping get the chapter there established.
"That night Gerti told everyone about the pitfalls of Friendly Venturing in the middle of winter in 1951. She had been called home for some emergency, missed the end of the chapter installation, got caught in a blizzard and found herself sitting on a train track, in a train going nowhere. She is not sure how many nights were spent waiting for the stormy weather to abate. Suffice to say, she missed 'the emergency' too!"
Times have changed for her business and her family, with Milbanke Flowers now in the hands of its fourth generation. In 1964, he saw one of her two daughters, Louise (better known as Bunny) and husband Howard Libbey take over the family business. Bunny and Howard have now retired to the Jackfish Lake area and their son Glen and his wife Cindy Libbey, who expanded the business in 1986, are the current owners.
Millbank's other daughter, Gloria, lives in Victoria.
Now widowed for 22 years, after husband Philip, who she married in 1937, died in 1990 at the age of 84, Milbanke is retired. As a floral designer, she was still working in the family business until a few years ago..
Beta Sigma Phi
Beta Sigma Phi is a non-academic international women's friendship network that provides educational programs to its members and opportunities for service to others.
Known around the world as "The Friendship Organization," members are women of all ages, interests, educational and economic backgrounds. It is the largest organization of its kind in the world.
Beta Sigma Phi chapters exist in every Canadian province, every American state, and in 30 other countries. Locally members in four chapters - Laureate Kappa Chapter, Xi Master Chapter, Preceptor Theta Chapter and Xi Delta Chapter-contribute over $1,500 annually in support of the arts, in particular, scholarship contributions to Kinsmen Band, Kiwanis Music Festival, Battlefords Dance Festival and Ukrainian Dance Festival.
