Tom and Cheryl Millham celebrate 50th wedding anniversary

True Love is alive and well in South Lake Tahoe. This Saturday, February 27, 2021, Tom and Cheryl Millham will be celebrating their Golden Wedding Anniversary. It was exactly 50 years ago, also on a Saturday, that the couple was wed in Temple City, California. The minister who performed the ceremony was Cheryl’s brother, Dr. Robert Bender.

Both Tom and Cheryl spent their childhood in Temple City, going through the city’s school system and both graduated from Temple City High School. The only difference was that Cheryl graduated in 1958 and Tom in 1968. But, going through the school system was not the only similarity in their lives.

When Cheryl’s mom and dad, Blaine and Helen Bender, moved from Kansas City, Missouri to the Los Angeles area in 1936 the first person who greeted them at the door was Tom’s grandmother, Garnet Sames. The families became friends and after the Bender’s moved to Temple City, it was Cheryl’s dad who contacted Tom’s dad (Al Millham) and told him about this nice little community that they might want to come and check it out. That was in 1955. The Millham’s bought a house and lived in that same house until Tom’s mom, Jackie, passed away two years ago at the age of 9t. She was still living in that same house.

In November 1970, Tom went on Active Duty with the U S Navy SeaBees, after spending about 18 months with his reserve unit in Pasadena. In December, Tom found out that he would be going to Vietnam in March. After counseling with both of Cheryl’s brothers, Bob and Darryl, the couple decided to get married before Tom left for the war country for a seven-month tour. The date they decided on was February 27th. At the time, the couple was renting a house on Olive Street, just down the street from Cheryl’s mom and dad.

Cheryl had two daughters from a previous marriage. The next year (1972), Tom adopted the girls, Debi and Connie. In December 1975, three years after the Bender family had purchased a boat marina in Camp Richardson at Lake Tahoe, the family asked Tom, Cheryl and the girls to move to ‘Tahoe’ and manage the marina. It took all of about two seconds to say, “YES!” In January 1976, the couple put their house up for sale and moved the family to Tahoe.

In April, 1978, Cheryl saw an article in a Woman’s Day magazine with a picture of a lady (Jenny Collins) holding a baby raccoon. The article talked about an organization in Los Altos, Calif., Wildlife Rescue, Inc., which cared for orphaned and injured wild birds and animals. All her life, Cheryl loved animals. This was a natural. So, she asked Tom if they could go to the training seminar (at Stanford University) Wildlife Rescue was holding. They did and, then next month, the couple, along with another couple (Bob and BJ Dietz) founded Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care (LTWC).

The organization was housed out of the Millham’s home, which, at the time, was at Camp Richardson. Then, in 1982, the Benders sold the marina and Tom and Cheryl had to find a new place to live. The found a lot just ten minutes away off of Elks Club Drive in Meyers and have been there ever since. LTWC was housed by the Millham’s for 42 years, until the new LTWC facility was built in October 2019.

Because of COVID-19, Tom and Cheryl are postponing their Golden Anniversary celebration until later this summer, but they will go out on the town in South Lake Tahoe on the 27th to and have a very nice anniversary dinner!

This was provided to South Tahoe Now.