Jean Miller
Jean Miller was born Clema Jean Miller to Irma and Hale Burnham on Nov. 2, 1922 in Newport, Wash. They lived across the Washington state line in Oldtown, Idaho.
She joined her sister Betty who was born two years earlier. Betty and Jean were followed by a bother Hale, a brother Maurice and sister Joyce. She and her sisters and brothers all went to school in the Idaho Hill Elementary school until they moved to Sandpoint in 1935.
Her father died in 1928 as the result an electrical accident at their Newport home on Christmas Eve.
In 1937 Irma was remarried to Forrest Earl Kellogg and Jean added two more brothers, Arlie and Danny. They all shared a home on south Boyer until she graduated form Sandpoint High School in 1940.
After graduation she worked in Sandpoint at J.C. Penny’s and Ross Hall’s Photography Studio until she was married on May 9, 1943, to George P. Miller.
George had been working for Stone’s Grocery Store in Sandpoint before he was inducted into Army/Air Force. There honeymoon was spent at McAllen Air Force Base in Texas.
When George was shipped out to the Pacific, Jean returned to Sandpoint and had her first son, Allen.
In 1946, at the end of World War II, George was discharged from the Army/Air Force and returned to Sandpoint to work again for Stone’s Grocery.
Stone’s Grocery was later purchased by Sigman Food Stores of Spokane. In 1947 Jean and George moved to Bonners Ferry to manage the Sigman Food Store in that town.
Jean was anticipating the arrival of their second child when the 1948 floods arrived at Bonners Ferry. Not wanting to boat across the Kootenai River to get to the Bonners Ferry Hospital, Jean returned temporarily to Sandpoint to deliver a daughter, Nancy.
Bonners Ferry provided many community/social activities including Order of Eastern Star, Daughters of the Nile, Legion Auxiliary, Bonners Ferry Hospital Auxiliary, Cub Scouts, backup checker at the family grocery store as well as additions to the Miller family in 1955 with Donald Lowell, and in 1958 with Penny Elizabeth.
After George sold the grocery store they took a number of side trips with their friends Bill and Evelyn Maas, Benny and Billie Teer and Jim and Joanne Farber. Later after George’s death she ventured out to tour Alaska with Betty Mills and Cleo Mae Hicks; Switzerland and India with Virginia Danke.
She continued to be active in local functions until she moved to Hayden in 2003 to be closer to family.
Jean is preceded in death by her husband George Miller, son Donald Lowell Miller, infant daughter Patti Ann, granddaughter Angela Stewart, brothers Hale and Maurice Burnham, sister Betty Kedish and brother Danny Kellogg.
Jean is survived by sister Joyce Finley, brother Arlie Kellogg, son Allen Miller (Leslie), daughters Nancy Stewart, Penny Fields (Larry), daughter-in-law Susan Miller, grandchildren Lisa Rakes, Kim Miller, Scott Miller, Nikki Shirley, Farrah McBride, Summer Evans, Hale Fields, Beth Fields, Rebeckah Mauch, Sarah Miller, and 16 great grandchildren and several nieces and nephews.
A celebration of life is scheduled for March 5, 2011, from noon to 4 p.m. at the Lake City Senior Center, 1916 Lakewood Drive, Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, 83814.
Memorials can be made to the Shrine Hospital in Spokane.