Alida Ward Miller passed away at St. Andrew’s Village in Indiana, Pennsylvania on Friday afternoon, February 10, 2023, at 12:58pm. The time of her passing was 1:58am Saturday morning, February 11, 2023, in Hong Kong where her son, Bradley Cleland Miller, lives. She was 89 years old.
Her life was marked by her faithfulness to her family, her church, and her Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Alida was born in Lockport, New York, on June 15, 1934, with a given maiden name of Alida Field Ward. Her parents were Helen Bloomer Ward of Brewster, New York, and Donald Silverthorn Ward, of Lockport, New York. Alida’s family had a long lineage in the United States. The Mayflower, the first boat to America carrying the Pilgrims in 1620, had four of her ancestors on board out of the 102 souls onboard the ship. Her Dutch lineage through New Amsterdam (now New York City) included the last Dutch governor of New Amsterdam as well as one of the largest Dutch landowners in the Dutch colony that came before its handover to the British as the renamed New York colony. The Quaker colony of Pennsylvania and the colony of New Jersey also marked the final third and fourth parts of her ancestral heritage in America. Members of her family served in almost every war in North America including the Revolutionary War. Her father served his country in World War I.
Alida attended Lockport High School and in her ongoing studies went on to graduate from the College of Wooster receiving a bachelor’s degree in religion in 1956. Alida came from a family with a long heritage of women’s advanced education. In 1919, Her mother, Helen Bloomer Ward graduated two years early at the age of 19 from the University of Syracuse in Syracuse, New York. Her grandmother, Mary McQueen Ward attended Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, in the mid-1880s shortly after its founding. She, much later in life while she was in her 90’s, pursued further education and went on to earn a master’s degree. Wellesley was the first institution dedicated to female advanced education in the United States.
From a young age, her father, Donald Silverthorn Ward, himself a 1916 graduate of the University of Michigan with a degree in Nautical Engineering and a subsequent master’s degree in education from Syracuse University, emphasized the importance to his daughter throughout her younger years that Alida attain at a minimum a bachelor’s degree.
Alida was raised attending the First Presbyterian Church of Lockport, NY, and experienced a reconfirmation of her faith, dedicating her life to Jesus Christ, when she became born again while attending Inter Varsity Christian Fellowship at the College of Wooster. After graduation she went on to become a staff worker at Inter Varsity Christian Fellowship for the College of Wooster.
During summers, Alida worked as a counselor at Camp of the Woods in upstate New York.
Following her graduation, Alida worked for a while for the College of Wooster Alumni Association. It was during this post-graduation period she met and subsequently married her husband, Dr. Vincent P. Miller, Jr. Dr. Miller had recently taken up an Assistant Professor position in Geography at the College of Wooster.
At the time she met Dr. Miller, she had been planning to attend Union Theological Seminary in New York City with a desire to become a youth pastor.
She often recounted a dramatic event that occurred just prior to meeting Dr. Miller when a tornado struck a bank she also had worked at in Wooster, Ohio. She had stepped into the vault of the bank for her work just prior to a tornado’s strike on the building. When she came out of the vault the building was destroyed and only the vault remained.
Alida decided not to pursue her plans at Union Theological Seminary and instead moved after her wedding on July 23, 1960, to Dr. Miller to East Lansing, Michigan, where he obtained his PhD in Geography and Regional Planning at Michigan State University. Alida often recounted the time she and Dr. Miller lived in Oslo, Norway while he pursued research to complete his dissertation.
After Dr. Miller finished his studies, he and Alida moved to Indiana, Pennsylvania where he became a professor at Indiana University of Pennsylvania in the Geography and Regional Planning Department.
Not long after that, on September 1, 1964, their only child, Bradley Cleland Miller was born. Friends of Mrs. Miller recount that, upon responding to the question, “What is your greatest accomplishment in life?”, she replied instantly, “Bradley”. It is an honor for her son to know that such an accomplished woman would consider him to have been her greatest work in her own very accomplished life.
Alida and her husband, Dr. Miller, from the moment they moved to Indiana, Pa., became members of Graystone Presbyterian Church. In their last few years, they moved across the church lawn to lend their faithfulness to Christ as part of the congregation of the Calvary Presbyterian Church.
The family wishes to welcome all visitors and friends on Sunday afternoon, February 19, 2023, to Bowser-Minich Funeral Home in Indiana, Pennsylvania, between the hours of 3pm and 5pm or 6pm to 8pm for a viewing. On Monday, February 20, 2023, a brief service at Bowser-Minich will be held at 1pm immediately followed by an interment graveside at Oakland Cemetery.
