Millie Howie remembered

How do you sum up Millie Howie in a sentence? It would have to
have “gracious,” “witty,” “light,” “polite,” “seemingly effortless
prose stylist,” “determined” and “strong moral character” between
the initial capital letter and the period.
Millie founded the Sonoma County Wine Library. She had been
working on it a good fifteen years when I came along in 1988, with
the new Healdsburg Library. She had been working as a public
relations person for Geyser Peak winery in the early 1970’s, and
worked with other wineries to found the Russian River Wine Road
(now known simply as the Wine Road). That group did some
cooperative advertising, published a map, and actively tried to
promote wine tourism up here in the Northern Sonoma County. Out of
this cooperative effort came the idea of a wine library. These
bright studious PR people from various wineries had collaborated on
researching the area. They thought how cool it would be to have a
business and technical library for the area industry. They were
talking about putting the library in this winery or that one, or
maybe in a neutral site like a chamber of commerce or… “Hey if you
want to do a library,” Millie told the group, “Go to the library.
They know from libraries.”
So did Millie. She had done public relations work for the
California Library Association. Her daughter, Linda Ramey, was a
librarian. Millie was a devoted lifelong library user. She
convinced the industry people, and that was easy enough. Then she
had to convince the library. She took the then-Director, David
Sabsay, out to lunch, and he laughed at the idea. With Mothers
Against Drunk Driving ramping up, and the 1972-74 recession
flattening the library’s income, Sabsay could see no way a
collection on alcohol for rich winery folks would be a fit for a
public library. Over the course of a few more lunches, Millie undid
his objections. It would not be an alcohol collection. It would
center on the microbiology and organic chemistry of enology, the
viticulture, as well as the economics and marketing and public
relations that are needed to sell wine. It would also serve to
archive and collect the area’s resonant wine history. It would be
in the grand tradition of cooperative Sonoma County agriculture,
and it would not cost the library. The wine industry would
subsidize the venture.
With determination, charm and solid reasoning, Millie won over
David Sabsay and the wine library was green lighted. It took her
over a decade to help organize the community and build a new
library to house it, but she was there every step of the way.
Along the way Millie went from being a public relations person
to a fulltime independent writer for numerous magazines, an author
of several books, and a columnist for this paper. She corrected
people when they called her “a wine writer.” She thought that was
limiting. She thought of herself as a writer, period. Her writing
was always clear and easy, direct and fun. Her light tone was never
fluffy or cute, but supple. Her hooks were natural not contrived.
She drew you into the story with an intriguing first line, and
managed to make everyone she interviewed interesting. Over the
years she coached and mentored many writers and public relations
people, many of whom have contacted me since her death and said
they really owe Millie.
Civility and good manners were a big part of Millie’s operating
code, but a keen sense of right and wrong also informed her
conduct. She became a Sonoma County Library Commissioner after the
Healdsburg Library was built, and served in that capacity during a
turbulent time in the library’s history. Millie served at a time
that a library director had been found to be inept. It is a very
hard thing for a governing body to admit that a director needs to
move on. Millie put some backbone into her fellow commissioners at
that time, siding with other library management people against the
director. After a messy series of public meetings, the director’s
contract was not renewed. The people of the county owe Millie a
great debt for that one.
I can still remember Millie and her dog Barney. She lived on
Piper Street for a while in a little house spitting distance from
the library. Patti Lewis, Healdsburg’s children’s librarian and
later the library’s county-wide Coordinator of Children’s Services,
had sold the house to her for a friend who had to sell. Barney, her
three-legged St. Bernard was a fixture in the front yard. He had
started out with four legs, but had lost one. Kids used to love to
come and say hi to Barney who just kind of laid there and thumped
his tail when a kid approached. Millie got tremendous pleasure from
that dog and the pleasure he gave the passing children. I have read
in her oral history that her mother and her father separated, and
that she was raised by her grandparents. She has two accomplished
daughters, Linda Ramey and Jann Howie, from two marriages that did
not last. When I visited her and her daughter Linda a week or so
ago their mother/daughter love was palpable. “I think I always
tended to be a loner,” she said in her oral history. Maybe so. She
certainly knew how to be independent, but she also knew how to love
and be loved, and how to build community.
Bo Simons is the Wine Librarian. He can be reached at **@so****.us or
433-3772.