Emma Louise McMillan was born on October 28, 1890, to John Fairley McMillan (1853- 1925) and Louise "Loula" Holliday McMillan (1865-1939). Her father was a minister, and the family lived in Marion, South Carolina. The McMillans had four other children: daughters Mary Kathleen (b. 1888) and Montague (b. 1893), son Dugal Gray, and youngest daughter Marion Howard. All three girls attended Limestone College, a women's college in Gaffney, South Carolina, and Gray attended Clemson University in Clemson, South Carolina. Louise attended Limestone College from 1908-1912. She was unable to complete her degree after battling appendicitis and enduring a lengthy hospitalization into the winter of 1912. After a brief return to Marion, she boarded in various parts of North Carolina in the hopes that the country air and higher altitudes would improve her health (she also struggled with asthma and the grippe). In 1914, she briefly taught school in the rural setting of Bayboro, North Carolina. From 1915 to 1916, Louise attended the Baptist Women's Missionary Union Training School (Louisville, Kentucky). Upon leaving the Training School, she worked in nursing at several South Carolina hospitals before quitting formal nursing altogether in the fall of 1919. Louise returned to Marion, where she took on private nursing jobs and eventually settled permanently back at Knapdail with her youngest sister, Marion.
From the description of Louise McMillan papers, 1906-1956. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 79463263
