Ask Vi Viola Canouse
Nearing a half-century, there’s not much she doesn’t know, By Marilyn Rosenthal MILFORD If you want to know anything about Milford Township, ask Viola Canousetownship secretary, treasurer and tax collector. That’s Vi (as in vie) and Canouse (rhymes with house). Canouse has been the Milford Township tax collector for 47 years. Her mother had originally been the tax collector and then appointed Viola to fill her position. Vi won every election after that except for one. There was a woman named Helen Findley who actually had the temerity to run against her. Findley won, but was too busy to handle the job and so she ceded it to Canouse who was then elected again to the position. Viola herself says, “As long as the brain and the body work, I’ll keep working. In three more years, I’ll be 80 and will have put in 50 years as the tax collector.” Canouse being the secretary and treasurer of Milford Township as well is considered one of the primary reasons that the township is in good fiscal condition. Currently the township has no debt, and the tax rate has not changed for six years. Canouse says, “It is because the supervisors are fiscally responsible.” While that may be the case, it is also a fact that it was she who advised the township to pay off its municipal loan and save the interest to pay it forward towards worthwhile municipal projects. The township also saves mortgage interest on their building. The mortgage is paid off and it uses the money it would have paid for the mortgage for future projects. She became the secretary/ treasurer accidentally. Her late husband, Richard “Dick” Canouse, was a supervisor and Viola knew the other supervisors and knew the township well. It was Supervisor Isabel Kramer who appointed Viola to the job. One day she just said, “OK, Vi, you can have the job.” Viola Canouse is a life-long Milford Township resident. Her father was a state park guard (the equivalent of a park ranger in today’s terminology). He worked at Child’s Park in Dingmans Ferry, which was then a campground. He met and courted Vi’s mother who was camping there with her family. They were soon married and a year later Viola was christened under the second waterfall in Childs Park. Her family moved to Milford and her dad bought Moon Valley Park in 1965. This was a huge property of almost 1,000 acres. It was a game farm , a park, a storybook land, and it had summer cottages. Her father sold more than half the land to Malibu Ranch in 1987 and the rest was sold to a developer. The property was cut down further when I-84 went through it. Viola and her family still have some property up the hill on Moon Valley Road, but things are different now. Viola Canouse has seen many changes in the area in her long tenure as a resident and a township official. Her husband graduated from High School in the Old School House building in Milford in 1949. There were 13 in his graduating class. She graduated in 1950. There were 20 students in her class. In the 1970s, her daughter graduated from DVHS with 150 others, and her grandson recently graduated with well over 400 students in his class. One of the biggest changes Vi sees is the increased population and with it the increase in traffic and taxes. She is also a member of the Planning Commission. This is a volunteer job, in addition to her two part-time jobs. People have told her that she is the perfect person to be on the Planning Commission because she knows so much about the past. She is sometimes referred to as “the Mother of Milford Township.” She says, with characteristic modesty, “That’s just because I’ve been here forever.”
Viola was christened under the second waterfall in Childs Park....” About a year after her parents had first met there.