Lasting Memories

Milford Reynolds ("Mil") Pribble
March 27, 1919-June 12, 2013
Palo Alto, California

Mil Pribble of Palo Alto, a retired court reporter, author and editor, passed away on June 12 at El Camino Hospital in Mountain View following a period of congestive heart failure that was, mercifully, relatively brief when compared with his preceding 94 years of hard work, restless curiosity and vigorous pursuit of all that matters most in life.

Always challenging himself to master new areas of knowledge, Mil earned degrees in liberal arts from Chapman University and in divinity from Yale and studied educational psychology at Stanford.

His wide-ranging career included serving as pastor of First Christian Church in Tempe, Arizona, several years as a private investigator (elements of which he drew upon for his as-yet-unpublished suspense novel) and finally, court reporting in the Solano County, Federal Bankruptcy and Santa Clara County Courts.

Following long service as a court reporter, in 1994 Mil entered an active retirement featuring frequent forest cabin and camping retreats and travel across the United States and abroad, including an oceangoing cruise around Cape Horn and tours in Canada and China. He also did extensive journalistic and editorial work on California Retired Public Employees Association (RPEA) newsletters and authored two cookbooks, and his short stories were published twice in the Fault Zone anthologies of The California Writers? Club. His tireless championing of the rights and interests of State retirees, which included stints as RPEA Board member, Director of Communications and the chairmanship of the Member Services Committee, earned him recognition as 2012 RPEA Member of the Year.

Mil is survived by Sarah, his wife of 26 happy years; by children Ron, Shirley (Brooks) and David; by stepsons George and Steve Neil; by grandchildren Jarrell Moore, Megan Cherry and Ethan Pribble, Collin and Logan Brooks and great-grandson Miro Moore; by sister Helen Francis and her children Carol, Joe, Tom and Jane; and by numerous nephews, nieces and other extended family members and devoted friends of long standing. He was predeceased in the 1970s by his first wife and mother of his children Ella and by their firstborn son Fred.

His panoramic interests ran from history, genealogy and politics to nutrition and health, quantum physics, music and literature.

He will be long remembered and forever missed as a loyal friend and family patriarch, bon vivant, spellbinding storyteller and gourmet chef, who for nearly a century shared with the world a generous and unfailingly loving spirit, an incisive yet open mind and a gentle and disarming wit.