Erv Mild Jr. Obituary - Visitation & Funeral Information

Erwin Henry Mild, Jr. went home to the Lord during the early morning hours of November 9th, 2020, while in peaceful residence at the Missouri Veterans Home in St. James, Missouri. A devoted husband, dad, grandpa, veteran of the Korean War, and a lifelong gentleman of the outdoors, Erv had an easygoing way about him. To those who knew and loved him, he will be greatly missed. He came into this world at the start of the Great Depression, September 1931. The newborn was given his father’s name, Erwin Henry. His mother would call him Junior all her life. Erv’s mother’s family had a farm in Perryville. As a boy, Erv spent summers there, working, and during his off-hours enjoyed fishing the streams. His favorite part of a day working on the farm was lunchtime when they enjoyed some of his most memorable meals. Love of the outdoors was a habit he successfully passed onto his four children, who grew up with float trips and camping in the Tetons or sailing at Carlyle Lake and Lake Okoboji. He was tenacious. He was optimistic. He believed whole-heartedly in the value of confidence. He was on the 1947 Wrestling team at Kirkwood Highschool, the year the team won the state championship and was recently inducted into the Kirkwood High School Hall of Fame. Erv would always try to find a way to build confidence in you, having known the value of it firsthand. Kids and grandkids and even their friends similarly would attest, Erv always seemed to want to help people out, to make them feel just a little bit better about themselves, however he could. He met his future wife while attending Washington University. After a blind date “so bad I never wanted to do it again,” he did anyway, by attending the Sigma Alpha Epsilon mixer, where Betty Sue Brannon, confessed she’d recently suffered through the exact same fiasco herself. They tied the knot in the summer of 1955. He was among the first generation of men to embrace computers, having chosen the major in college after deciding it was a smart move. His first job out of the gate was at IBM. He and Betty moved into their first house in Ballwin and never left. It was a neighborhood where all the men went off to work in their shiny shoes, the wives played bridge, and the kids went to the pool. Some of the neighbors later said they were dumbfounded why on earth Erv, when he got home from work every night, would put on sneakers and scamper off down the street on a jog. Once he got it into his head to sail around the world, and conspired with a friend to build his own boat in the garage on Claymont. After a maiden voyage on Creve Coeur Lake, the boat sprung a leak, and Erv stayed home. His enthusiasm never dimmed. He was a lifelong optimist. Whatever the problem, whatever tool or doo-dad wasn’t working, he’d say the same thing. Just give it a little—and give a short whistle. The college sweethearts stayed together for over sixty years. The time together was marked by the devotion of two people who’d known each other as kids, who’d grown up with the same values, who found peace and purpose as members of Trinity Lutheran Church for many years. There he was an elder, sang in the choir, and led the occasional softball game behind the church in the huge green field. He loved his pets, especially Gunther, Hagar and Cody, the many dogs of his life. He also loved the stray cats he’d, at first, request no one feed them for then they wouldn’t stay, but always gave in after the kids secretly fed them, inspiring them to stay. He adored his family. Even in widowhood, having lost Betty Sue in 2017, the most common form of his love was his generous nature. The week before he passed away, Erv announced he felt like a glass of champagne. Lisa raised a glass through the window that protected him in Covid isolation (it was sparkling grape juice). A week later, November 8th, during a late afternoon video call, the two of them went through photos of his wedding album. One favorite photo of them walking down the isle, after the service, he shook his head at a picture of his young bride, age 22. “What a knockout,” he said. A few minutes past midnight, on November 9th, Erv breathed his last. He is survived by his children, Mike, Jeff, Lisa and Bob, his grandchildren, Jacob, Caleb, Molly and Rachael, and his two brothers, Bob and Bill. Erv will be laid near his mother and father in law, Vernon and Susie Brannon, and rest forever beside his beloved Betty Sue, at the Oak Hill Cemetery, in his hometown of Kirkwood, Missouri.

Erv Mild Jr.

September 12, 1931 - November 9, 2020