Millicent M. Selby; Wife of Prominent Lawyer

Millicent Marie Selby, a longtime Ventura resident and wife of prominent Ventura County lawyer William T. Selby, died Saturday of natural causes. She was 88.

Millicent Selby was born in Oakland on June 5, 1908, and grew up in the East Bay. She began working in the Oakland headquarters of Safeway Stores, now the Safeway supermarket chain, in 1928 at age 20, where she met the man who would later become her husband. William Selby worked in Safeway’s legal department and Millicent was his secretary.

William Selby said he proposed marriage to Millicent after Safeway decided to move him to Kansas City, Mo., to oversee the company’s legal affairs in the Midwest. The two were married in 1931 shortly before William Selby’s scheduled departure for Missouri.

“It was pretty quick,” said William Selby. “They said it wouldn’t last, but it lasted a good while--her entire lifetime.”

The two were married for 65 years.

The Selbys’ first child, Ted, was born during the family’s two-year stay in Missouri. Safeway moved the family to California’s San Gabriel Valley in 1933, where their second son, Bill Jr., was born.

William Selby’s family had deep roots in Ventura, settling in the region in the 1880s. William Selby’s grandfather was a prominent lawyer and his father served for a time as Ventura County’s district attorney.

William Selby decided to move Millicent and the family back to the area in 1936 and follow in his father’s footsteps by taking a job as chief deputy district attorney for the county. Selby became the county’s chief prosecutor in November 1937 and held the position until August 1938.

The family’s third and fourth children, Jack and Virginia, were born in Ventura around the time of William Selby’s tenure in the district attorney’s office. The family then moved to a larger house in Saticoy on Telephone Road.

“She was a good wife and mother and we got along very well,” William Selby said. “We never had a fight.”

She developed an interest in gardening while living in Saticoy and raised flowers in the yard surrounding her home until she and her husband moved back to Ventura in 1987. She was also an enthusiastic golfer and traveler, and the couple often combined the two pursuits, playing the links at Pebble Beach and St. Andrews, Scotland.

Bridge was another of Millicent Selby’s favorite pastimes. In 1938, she and her friends established a bridge club in Ventura that still meets once a month.

Millicent Selby is survived by her husband and four children, 11 grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held at 10 a.m. Wednesday at the Joseph P. Reardon Funeral Chapel in Ventura. She will be interred in a private ceremony at Ivy Lawn Cemetery in Ventura.

Arrangements are under the direction of the Joseph P. Reardon Funeral Home, Ventura.