Millville Museum Honors Veterans, Local Family Stories Take Center Stage

The Millville Army Airfield Museum held its Veterans Appreciation Day at Millville Executive Airport on December 8, drawing local residents to a program that combined formal recognition with personal history. Donna Pio, Millville Woman’s Club Education Co Chair, served as the event's keynote speaker and focused her remarks on the service of her father, Sergeant Robert Goldstine, a World War II veteran who served in the U.S. Army Air Corps as a P 47 Thunderbolt mechanic stationed at the Millville Army Airfield.

Lisa Jester, executive director of the museum, framed the gathering within the site's broader mission. She said, "We honor our World War II veterans here at America’s First Defense Airport, along with all veterans for their service to our country." That mission resonated throughout the event as attendees toured exhibits and viewed artifacts that connect Millville to the wartime home front and aviation maintenance operations.

Pio recounted aspects of her father's life on the base and his postwar ties to the city. She noted that he met his future wife, Madeline Milita, at a USO Halloween dance on the base. The couple later married, settled in Millville, and raised three children. Pio supplemented her remarks with photographs from the family archive, including an image of her father in uniform and a photo of her parents posed in wedding attire now displayed in the museum.

Members of the Millville Woman’s Club had earlier hosted Pio at their November meeting, where she delivered a condensed version of the family narrative and highlighted the personal dimensions of military service. The continuity between the Woman’s Club presentation and today’s keynote reflects a local pattern of civic groups partnering with the museum to keep veteran stories visible in public life.

For Cumberland County residents, the event reinforced the museum's educational role and offered a tangible connection to municipal history. Personal stories like Sergeant Goldstine's anchor the abstract statistics of wartime mobilization to family life and neighborhood memory. The museum's annual Veterans Appreciation Day serves both as commemoration and as a living archive, encouraging new generations to learn about the Airfield's place in local and national history.