Evening star., 1949-01-24
BY George Kennedy

Mildred Elizabeth Glllars, VINO
went on trial today in District Court
charged with treason, was a frus-
trated career girl until she finally
got TIE spotlight in wartime Ger
many as Axis Sally"
She was born in Portland. Me,
November %, 1900. She was stage
struck, a not uncommon trait Of
American girls of her generation.
Otherwise her arrival in her present
unenviable situation is matter of
character and circumstance.
A great many of the circum-
stances have been recorded by the
Army's Counter Intelligence Corps
and the Federal Bureau of Investi-
CATION. They will come out in the
trial. The reader and the juror
may come to their own conclusions
as to the flaws of character, which
in addition to circumstance, led
to her indictment as a traitor.
Like so many American children
of the first part of the century Miss
Gillars was born of immigrant par
ents. But there Is no known Ger
man element of her ancestry. Her
parents were born in New Bruns-
wick.
Name Was Sisk.
She was born Mildred Elizabeth
Sisk, daughter of Vincent Sisk, a
railroad yardman. and Mrs. Sisk,
the former Mae HeWittson.
So standardized was New England
elementary education at that time
that one knows that Mildred was
taught to write by making spiral
scrolls across ruled paper-the
Palmer method-and studied the
green, yellow and pink patterns in
Ginns Geography that represented
the areas of Germany, Austro-
Hungary and France. Every child
and every adult in the first decade
Of the century knew they were
permanent; history was over.
One knows that on the way home
from school she pretended to ignore
the boys and played tight-rope
walker on stone walls and made
daring jumps across openings for
cellar steps. 1t is not known
whether she wore pigtails or curls,
but they were probably curls because
behind every stage-struck girl is a
romantic mother.
She was an only child. In 1907
there was a break in her life. Her
parents were divorced. Her father
went to Boston and later to Balti-
more. Not long after her mother
married Robert Bruce Gillars, an
itinerant dentist. In those days
dentistry was changing from a
technique to a profession. Mr..
Gillars proudly filled out his appli-
cation for a Maine license with the
statement that he had pulled teeth
from coast to coast" 1t was re-
iected. This might have been the
reason that the family moved to
Conneaut, Ohio, where Mr.. Gillars
resumed his practice. BY this time
Mildred had an infant half-sister.
Mother Was Ambitious.
There is every indication that
Mildred's mother was ambitious for
her children. A suit over an unpaid
bill for the half-sister's tuition Is
in the record. Mildred went to
Conneaut High School and to
Ohio Wesleyan College, where she
maiored in public speaking, Her
mother worked hard to pay the bills.
After she divorced Mr.. Gillars in
1882 Che died in 1856 she took up
dentistry.
After Mildred left the Ohio Meth
odist college she headed for Green
wich Village. Those were the days
when memoir writer's were still TAX
ing note in basement cafes OF con-
versations with Eugene O'Ne1ll and
others about John Reed, the Har-
ward graduate who left the village
to become a Soviet saint. But no
one seems to have mentioned Mil
dred's presence. She showed up at
casting calls and made the rounds
of the theatrical agents. She says
she was on the stage and played
in road shows at Washington's old
Belasco and National Theaters. But
nothing on her stage career has
been found, whether due to the
inadequacy of theatrical records or
of the FBI investigation.
After she got into trouble and her
picture was on the front page of
every big newspaper, Philadel-
phia editor checked his files. Sure
enough she was the same woman
who in 1927 had come into the
Office and intimated that she was
going to anticipate the birth Of
child by jumping off bridge at 3
pm. Reporters and police were
present. She was grabbed at the
bridge rail. At police headquarters
she admitted that she was given
SIS for the suicide attempt" in
the exploitation of sensational
film on the plight Of unwed moth