Millie B. Mehnert

Millie Burch Mehnert, 84, of Lenexa, KS, passed on April 4, 2022. She was born in Kenansville, NC, on April 22, 1937, within fifty miles of the Atlantic ocean where she often went with her parents, older sister Mary Sue and friends.

After graduating high school at 17, she attended UNC Greensboro where she majored in music but considered English as she also wanted to be a writer. Upon graduating from college, she ventured far across the country to work at Yellowstone National Park and experienced the last great earthquake in W. Yellowstone the summer of 1959.

She then moved to Kansas City in 1960 after marrying John, her blind date she met through a relative while in college when he was in officer training for the Army at Ft. Belvoir, Virginia. She put her music degree to work teaching piano to dozens of students a week at a studio on the plaza. The couple then settled in Johnson County (Prairie Village and then Overland Park) and had three sons, Clayton, Jim, and Bill – all in the 1960s.

Millie also started her own piano studio in the family's house and over the course of 50 plus years, taught hundreds of students, including her three sons, as well as seven grandchildren. She also believed in providing leadership in the organizations she was a member and became President of the Kansas City Music Teachers Association and Federated Music Teachers. She was also a member of the SAI music sorority and had many friends in that group, including her mother-in-law.

Even as an accomplished music teacher, she still had a desire to be a writer and authored many short stories on her Smith Corona typewriter that were published for a local newspaper publication called Wednesday magazine. She retired from teaching piano in 2007, other than to her precious grandchildren, and utilized her newfound time to write a novel based on a young romance with the historical backdrop of the Yellowstone earthquake she had experienced. The book is titled The Savages of Yellowstone, published in 2015.

She and John camped with their children all over the country in their Coleman popup camper every summer and later graduated to a hardtop camper. Once John retired in the early nineties, they continued to camp, but they also traveled all over the world on educational trips through Elderhostel and made great lasting friendships while learning about salmon runs in Alaska and visiting opera houses in Austria. They had a wonderful marriage of 62 years. She is survived by her husband, three sons, and seven grandchildren: Eric, Tessa, Sophia, William, Allison, Laura, and Rachel. She will be deeply missed for her genuine love and kindness by her family, numerous students, colleagues, and friends.

A service will be held at 11 a.m. on Tuesday, April 12 at Grace United Methodist Church, 11485 S. Ridgeview Road, Olathe, KS, with a visitation beginning at 10 a.m. Memorial contributions may be made to the Kansas City Music Foundation providing scholarships to college-level music students.




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