Muriel Ellen Jeanette Giles

Muriel Ellen Jeanette Shiell Giles was born at Glasgow MT on February 13th, 1920, the daughter of Howard James Shiell and Muriel (Helland) Shiell. Her father had come from Ontario, Canada to homestead near Scobey MT at the age of 19. She was one of six children: brothers Ralph, Wendell and James, and sisters Ruth and Corrine.

She saddled and rode a horse to the one-room schoolhouse each day until her younger brothers and sisters were old enough to also go to school; then she had to hitch up a horse and buggy to drive them all to school.

She graduated from the school in Scobey and then went on to business college, learning secretarial skills. Later, she and her sister Ruth moved to Los Angeles, CA to live with their mother's sister, Aunt Ellen Kenney. She took courses to become a Licensed Practical Nurse, and attended Los Angeles Lutheran Bible Institute, where she met her future husband, Robert Delmar Giles, and served as Parish Worker at Trinity Lutheran, a new church just starting up among the orange groves of Hawthorne CA, riding a bicycle over dirt roads to visit the scattered German-American farmers that populated the area, and invite them to church.

They moved to Washington State where Robert earned a master’s degree in education at Pacific Lutheran College, and their daughter Naomi was born in 1947. From there they moved to Minneapolis/St Paul, MN where Robert earned a master’s degree in theology at Luther Seminary, and their son Daniel was born in 1952. They served an internship at North Hollywood CA, then returned to Minnesota for the final year of Seminary. Since her parents had moved to a farm near Hoffman MN, Muriel and the two kids stayed with them while Robert attended classes during the week and spent weekends with the family at the farm.

After Seminary, Robert took a call to serve first at Westchester and then at Redondo Beach CA. Their daughter Priscilla was born during those years; suffering from some serious, heartbreaking birth defects, she required constant care. They loved her very dearly, and rejecting the doctors' advice to put her into an institution, kept her at home. Two years later their son Seth was born and shortly after that they moved to Laurel MT, where Robert was the pastor at Our Savior's Lutheran church. Priscilla died at the age of two and a half, and their sons Obed and Nathan were born in Montana.

Hoping to serve as missionaries to the Navajo nation, they took a call to American Lutheran church in Phoenix, where Robert taught seventh and eighth grade at the school and served on staff as an associate pastor. Their youngest son, Paul, was born shortly after they arrived in Arizona. For five years in Phoenix, they made frequent trips to the mission station on the reservation at Rock Point, planted a Lutheran church in Kingman AZ. and served a storefront mission church, Good Samaritan Lutheran, on Buckeye Road in South Phoenix.

In 1966 they moved to Hawthorne CA where again Robert taught at the school and served as an Associate Pastor, at that same Trinity Lutheran church which was now a suburban congregation of about 2,000 members. In 1968 they took a call to serve First Lutheran church in Orland CA. Along the way, Robert earned three doctorates (a PhD, a ThD, and a Doctor of Ministry), while Muriel fed and cared for her husband, daughter, and five sons, and occasionally took outside secretarial work to help keep the budget in the black.

Eventually they returned to Phoenix to serve at Hope Lutheran Church on South Central Avenue. In 1982 they accepted a call from the Capetown Synod of the Republic of South Africa to serve two churches at King William's Town and Braunschweig. They lived there for five years before returning to the home they had built in Laveen, AZ. From Laveen they commuted to serve in churches in Casa Grande, Phoenix, and Tucson, AZ., and Tulia, TX.

After retirement, they sold the home in Laveen and built a new one in Sun City West, where they lived until 2008. As they were getting older and Robert's health was failing, their son Nathan purchased a house in Mesa and made it available so that they could live closer to their children and grandchildren. Their son and daughter-in-law, Daniel and Debbie, came up from Mexico to help care for them, and the rest of their sons, Seth, Obed, Nathan and Paul and their families all lived nearby.

Robert died in 2009 at the age of 92. Muriel lived with Dan and Debbie in the home in Mesa until December 7th, 2024, when she died peacefully in her sleep at the age of 104 years, nine months, three weeks and three days.

Muriel was a woman of uncommon faith and stoicism. She was a combination of sweet and tough. She lived a life of adventure and challenge and led her family through it all with grace.

Muriel was preceded in death by her parents, her five brothers and sisters, two daughters, one son, one grandson and one great-granddaughter. She is survived by four sons, 15 grandchildren, and 13 great-grandchildren, with two more great-grandchildren on the way.

Blessed be her memory!