Mildred “Mil” Ennis Howell, of Pensacola Beach, FL, died peacefully on July 16, 2024, after 76 years full of life. She will always be missed and remembered as a wife, mother, sister, friend, doctor, caregiver, sailor, cowgirl, and adventurer.
Mil was born on May 8, 1948, in Meridian, MS, and grew up in Livingston, AL, the second of four children and the daughter of Robert Ennis, a cowboy at heart, and Mildred McIntosh Ennis, an educator and homemaker. As a child, Mil loved riding horseback alone through the pastures and woods along the Sucarnoochee River near Livingston. From an early age, she bonded deeply with her father and shared a love of horses and the outdoors. She was known to be quiet, independent, and observant.
As a student, she sailed through the University of Alabama and Livingston University in just three dedicated years, attending summer school and doing her homework in the Kappa Delta sorority basem*nt, even during home football games. Friends knew her as an attentive listener and straight shooter; you had to be careful what questions to ask her, because the answer would always be the unvarnished truth.
She moved to Birmingham for medical school at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and was one of a small handful of female graduates in 1974. She married William Howell, a fellow medical student, and together they started a family. They had two sons, Isak and Lucius, and at that time Mil paused her medical training. After the marriage ended, Mil took a position with the Health Department. Later, she resumed her residency in Internal Medicine, relying heavily on Barbara T. Moore, who helped raise the two boys while Mil navigated nights on call and a challenging career. She and Barbara raised the boys with unconditional support, hosting a rock band in the basem*nt, a skateboard halfpipe in the backyard, and frequent soul food cookouts. She provided a safe space and dealt gracefully with her sons’ adolescent brushes with hooliganism.
Mil was driven by a desire to work in a medical field where she would be both challenged and useful to those in need. For most of her career she commuted from Birmingham to Childersburg and worked as the only female physician at the Childersburg Medical Surgical Center. She was an excellent physician, able to understand and explain the miracle of the human body, and eager to connect with patients and navigate the challenges of diagnoses and the pain of disease and death.
In the late 1970s, through the 1980s and into the 1990s she developed a life and a new family with Larry “The Shan Man” Shannon, a dentist and Birmingham native, and his three children from his first marriage, Paul, Martha, and Tom. Together, Mil and Larry worked hard as medical professionals and played hard, becoming avid racers of catamaran sailboats, often at the Birmingham Sailing Club on Lake Logan Martin, but also at regattas at lakes and bays across the South and the Gulf Coast. For years they traveled in a brown 1977 Dodge Tradesman van, affectionately known as the Beast, with orange shag carpet, wood paneling, a captain’s chair, and a CB radio. The van, loaded with sails, some or all of the five children, and Budweiser, criss-crossed the South and even the country, and their best friends were those who shared a love of wind, sun, water, and friendly competition. Mil was never a passive passenger on any boat; she was an active and athletic sailor, often riding the trapeze while flying a hull in heavy winds.
When they were not sailing, Larry and Mil were on other adventures, including competitive swimming, windsurfing, bareboating, scuba diving, and whitewater rafting. She was a devoted fan of country music, always watching the CMT Hot 20 Countdown on Saturday mornings. The music and spirit of Willie Nelson was a constant companion, perhaps because he is a tireless and generous soul who sang about life on the road, life in the saddle, and the always unbroken circle of family. In her spare time, Mil loved to read novels, play Sudoku, take long walks with her sister, watch shows where the good guys always win, like NCIS and Bluebloods, and watch and re-watch any movie starring Kevin Costner, Tom Selleck, or Robert Redford.
Mil retired from the practice of medicine at the age of 55 and moved to a condo in Pensacola Beach with Larry. She lovingly cared for Larry during years of debilitating Alzheimer’s Disease and she lost her partner when he passed in 2012.
Through the years, she became known as “Granmil” and she could often be found at the “little beach,” a small strip of sand on the Santa Rosa Sound at their condo. There she enjoyed many sunsets while standing in the salt water in a tie-dyed tank top playing with some of her 13 grandchildren and visiting with her friends and neighbors. Many family adventures were centered there on Santa Rosa Island, building sand castles, watching the Blue Angels roar overhead, playing hide and seek at Fort Pickens, netting crabs and fish from the sound, or ordering gumbo and grilled fish at Peg Leg Pete’s. Mil was also a constant presence at the annual Virginia Creeper camping trips, where she would ride her bike down the mountain with dozens of friends and family and stay up late to dance around the campfire. In her final years, she developed an unbreakable bond with Andrew, her youngest grandchild. She lived near him for much of the school year and they would spend hours together playing pirates and Legos.
Over and over again, Mil demonstrated tireless care and generosity to a wide circle of children, siblings, nieces, grandchildren, and friends, often providing medical advice, moral support, sailing know-how, companionship, and life advice to those around her. She was fiercely independent and unapologetically forthright, but she was also a matriarch for whom family was everything. She lived as an example of a full life, confronting both fun and pain head-on, and she leaves an indelible legacy of service, devotion, and integrity. In her final months, she told her family she lived a blessed life with no regrets and no bucket list of unfulfilled goals.
Mil is survived by her sister, Beth Hillhouse, her brothers, Robert and Julian Ennis, her sons, Isak (Christine) and Lucius (Sarah) Howell, her step-children, Paul (Monica), Martha (Andy), and Tom (Jeanne) Shannon, and her 13 beloved grandchildren: Elsa and Ivy Howell; Lucius II, Hunt, and Andrew Howell; Ellie Cook, and Junius and Charlie Shannon; Tan, TJ, and Drew Tonge; Battle and George Shannon.
A memorial service will be held at 3:00 p.m. on Saturday, September 7, 2024, at Independent Presbyterian Church, 3100 Highland Ave., Birmingham, Alabama.
In lieu of flowers, please consider a contribution to the Birmingham Sailing Club Junior Sailing Program; Mil and Larry Shannon memorial youth sailing fund or the Pensacola Yacht Club Satori Foundation.
