Violet Rita "Viola" MacMillan (née Huggard; 23 April 1903 – 26 August 1993) was a Canadian mineral prospector and mining financier.
Spiers proved herself to be a capable, enterprising woman who, along with farming and raising 14 children, became a self-educated and respected midwife in the small town of Dee Bank, Ontario, three miles outside of Windermere, in the District of Muskoka, Canada, now a noted recreational area commonly referred to as "The Muskokas".
The couple had three children, Lily Ann, Mary Elizabeth (known as "Lizzie"), and John Wesley, before her death and burial at Ufford Methodist cemetery.
Huggard and Spiers married March 29, 1885, and their children were: William George, Harriet Jane, Bertie, Joseph R, Rebecca May, James, Vada, Minnie Hazel, Sarah Daisy, Viola Rita (aka Reta), Gordon Edward, and Reginald Lewis, with several of them favouring their middle names for common usage.
MacMillan was the thirteenth of fifteen children born to a hard-working, but impoverished family whose son, Joseph "Joe" Huggard, in 1922, inspired his young sister's interest in mining when he escorted her on an incognito tour of Coniagas Mine, where he worked during the Cobalt silver rush.
George's father, Richard, and his uncle, a prospector known as "Black Jack" MacMillan,[6] had taught him basic mineral mining in his youth and, in 1926, George and Viola became involved in mining due to his aging uncle's need to service his existing claims while in declining health.
In late winter 1964, Texas Gulf Sulphur geologists working near Timmins found a copper-silver-zinc ore body worth an estimated $2 billion.
In July 1965, rumours circulated in Toronto that the Texas Gulf Sulphur ore body reached the MacMillan's claim.
When assays showed the Windfall claims contained very little gold, the stocks collapsed, wiping out many investors and sparking a massive Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) investigation of mine financing in Toronto.