Sydell Marie (Hoover) Miller

CHEYENNE, Wyo. - Sydell Marie (Hoover) Miller, 85, died Feb. 14 after a short illness. Funeral mass will be held at 10 a.m., Monday, Feb. 19, at St. Agnes Catholic Church in Scottsbluff, with Fr. Don Buhrman officiating. Interment will be in the Angora Cemetery with military rites by the Nebraska National Guard. A rosary service will be held at 6 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 18 at Dugan-Kramer Funeral Chapel in Scottsbluff. Friends may call at the funeral home from 1 to 8 p.m. Sunday. Sydell was born Jan. 31, 1922, in DeQuincy, La., to Sidney and Corrine (Curtis) Hoover, and raised in rural Louisiana. She graduated from Singer High School in Singer, La., in 1938. She married Fred Clark Oct. 20, 1942, and a year later enlisted in the United States Navy. Less than a month after her enlistment, she was notified that her husband, a bomber crewman in the Army Air Corps, died when his aircraft crashed in England after mission over Europe. She continued her Navy service and completed training as a storekeeper at the University of Indiana, Bloomington, on March 4, 1944, and later served as a storekeeper for the U.S. Navy Bureau of Aeronautics in California. She fondly remembered her time flying with pilots in-training and studied to obtain a pilot's license. Honorably discharged from the navy on Sept. 26, 1945, she was employed by MGM studios in various capacities, and met many celebrities of the day, but because of a lung ailment, she was told to move to a drier climate and placed an ad in Montana newspaper looking for work as a cook. Hired by a recently widowed rancher, A. Glenn Miller, they were married Dec. 10, 1950, and she remained with Glenn until his death on Feb. 23, 1993. Throughout her life, she continued college studies, taking classes at various times at St. Mary and Margaret College in Oregon, Rice University in Texas, and Western Wyoming College in Rock Springs. She completed a degree in interior design and taught an interior design extension course at Western Wyoming College. From 1938 on, she held an interest in and competed in fencing, and later helped instruct an adult education course in fencing at the University of Wyoming in the late 1980's. Survivors include her brother, Jay Hoover, of Missoula, Mont.; sons, Sidney L. Miller and family of Scottsbluff, George H. Miller and family of Wichita, Kan., and James C. Miller and family, of Cheyenne; stepson, Gene G. Miller and family of Gillette; step son-in-law, Frank Kane and family of Bozeman, Mont.; 17 grandchildren; 22 great-grandchildren; 16 great-great grandchildren; one great-great-great grandchild; and numerous nieces and nephews. Preceding her in death were her parents; five siblings; two husbands; a stepdaughter; four grandchildren; and one great-grandchild.