Millie Graham Polak (nee Downs) was originally from England. She had met her future husband, Henry Polak, at the London Ethical Society prior to Henry’s move to South Africa in 1903. After Henry to proposed to her, Millie moved from London to Johannesburg to join Henry, where they were married in 1905. Initially after their marriage, Millie lived in Johannesburg at the Gandhi household, where she took on the role of teacher to the Gandhi children. Henry, meanwhile, lived half time at Phoenix Settlement with Gandhi and the other press workers, and travelled back and forth regularly between Phoenix Settlement and Johannesburg. 

In the summer of 1906, when Gandhi decided to shift his whole household to Phoenix Settlement, Millie relocated to the new intentional community with the Gandhi family. In her book Mr. Gandhi: The Man (published in 1931), Millie provides a vivid description of Phoenix Settlement at the time of her arrival, emphasizing that “the colony was to be as much as possible self-supporting, and life’s material requirements were to be reduced to a minimum,” and recalling that she was “disappointed and depressed” by her first view of the intentional community. 

After just two months at Phoenix Settlement, Millie decided to leave and returned to the Gandhi house in Johannesburg, preferring a more urban setting over the rural farm life. Henry, on the other hand, had a greater fondness for Phoenix Settlement and continued to split his time between it and Johannesburg for over a decade. During these years Millie continued to aid the Gandhi family and support Gandhi’s causes from her Johannesburg location. After Gandhi had departed South Africa to return to India (in 1914), Millie and Henry Polak elected to go to India and lived briefly with him at Sabarmati Ashram, before returning to England.