Edith Miller

Edith Grimm Miller, age 100, died peacefully on April 28, 2020 in her retirement community in Decatur, Georgia.

Edith was born to Rudolph and Edythe Grimm, January 14, 1920, in New York. She attended the Lincoln School of Columbia’s Teachers College and Middlebury College, graduating with a BA in sociology and physical education in 1941. While teaching in Utica, NY she married Lt. Thomas Gourlay of the US Army’s Tenth Mountain Division. In 1944, son Michael was born in Austin, TX.

After husband Thomas was lost to WWII, Edith moved to Westport, CT and taught at the Bolton School. In 1949 she married Dr. Henry Miller of Tarrytown, NY. They had two sons, Dwight and Bruce, and lived in Huntington Station, NY until Prof. Miller’s retirement from Queens College in 1971. He continued to teach as an emeritus professor at Morehouse College and Oglethorpe University in Georgia. Edith survived “Harry” in 1998, but continued to live in Decatur, GA near son Bruce until her death. Edith is survived by her three sons and grandson, Gregory, and daughter-in-law Jaroslava.

Edith enjoyed many pursuits including gourmet cooking, international travel, and supporting local chapters in New York and Georgia of the PTA, the DAR the American Association of University Women, New England Women and Colonial Dames of America. Her family spent a year in Ankara, Turkey in 1961, where she taught English at Turkey's national hotel management school. An avid reader, she also loved films, cats and was constantly active in her community. She once organized a fund to build a new home for a local family who lost their home to fire. She also met Governor Jimmy Carter while working on a UNICEF program.

Her friends and family remember her for her loyal lifelong support of intelligence, wit and the Episcopal Church. Some will also remember her enjoying her favorite things — reading a good mystery and sipping a cocktail, while glancing up occasionally at Pleasant Lake from her summer cottage in New London, NH. After memorial services in Decatur, GA, Edith will rejoin “Harry” at the Old Main Street Cemetery in New London.

As an expression of sympathy, donations may be mailed to : Second Life Thrift Store, 1 North Clarendon Ave., Avondale Estates, Georgia 30002.