Sally A. Miller

Her father, Earl Brotemarkle worked in a General Merchandise store where he earned $18 a month and after the stock market crash a year later his earnings was reduced to $9 a month. Her mother, Maude, worked hard making the family’s clothes and nutritious meals. Her father supplemented their diet with wild game. Although her family, by today’s standards was very poor, she never felt they were poor partly because they were well provided for and partly because everyone about them was just as poor.

Sally had elocution lessons when she was 5 or 6 which meant she learned poems and then on Saturdays would go to the town square and recite them.

Soon after this they moved to Colorado and lived for a short time in Boulder where her father again worked in a store, and soon afterward moved to live on three different farms near Keensburg until moving to Platteville when she was a junior in high school.

She graduated from Platteville High School in 1946, with 15 students in her graduating class. She was secretary of her Senior Class, Salutatorian and also Prom Queen.

After graduation she worked the soda fountain at Archer’s Drug Store and received a scholarship to attend Colorado State Teachers College in Greeley.

A year after graduation Sally married Raymond Miller, who was recently discharged from the army and was at the time working construction with Stanley Odenbaugh. They married on May 30, 1947 in St. Francis, Kansas.

Within four years she had three children, Kathleen, Marilyn and Bruce and had to stop going to college to take on the full time job of raising a family and managing a household.

For many years Sally and Raymond participated in bowling leagues with each winning many trophies.

In 1962, Sally had another son, Glenn, and once he was old enough to begin school she returned to complete her college education and on May 30, 1970 graduated from the University of Northern Colorado with a degree in media specialist and eventually went on to receive a Master’s Degree in Library Science.

For twenty years, Sally managed the library at the South Valley Middle School and the Platteville Elementary School and early on taught classes in Social Studies and English.

In 1991 Sally retired and then she and Raymond began traveling the world to places such as Morocco, Turkey, Kenya, Tanzania, New Zealand, India, Ecuador, Ireland, Australia and the Galapagos Islands.

Until the last few years when the effects of Alzheimer’s took hold, Sally worked hard on family genealogy of both the Miller and Brotemarkle families and was a founding member of the Platteville Historical Society and the Platteville Pioneer Museum. In 2011, she and Raymond were made Harvest Daze Grand Marshalls.

Sally died on May 21, 2017 at the Grace Pointe Assisted Living facility in Greeley, Colorado and is survived by her sister, Ruth Freauff, daughters, Kathleen Ferris and Marilyn Young, sons, Bruce Miller and Glenn Miller and eight grandchildren and six great- grandchildren.

Services will be held on May 30, 2017 at 11 a.m. at the Platteville Methodist Church. A reception will follow. A private family inurnment will occur at a later date.