Stuart Livingston Miller

Stuart Livingstone Miller passed away in Loveland, Colorado, on October 22, 2015 at the age of 87. Stuart was born in Gardner, Massachusetts, to Kenneth and Fanny (Hutchins) Miller on November 29, 1927, but grew up in Portland, Maine, living at 56 Wall Street and graduating from Deering High School. He received a congressional appointment to West Point and upon graduation in 1951, married Betty Catharine Blodgett. In a black and white photo from that day, he is boyish and bright-eyed in his new officer’s uniform, our mother in blinding white and radiant on his arm, stepping from the West Point Chapel into a bright June sun.

He deployed to Korea soon after, where he served as a platoon leader, then company commander in the 40th Infantry. He earned a Bronze Star with a “V” for valor for leading his men through a minefield, tracing a path on his hands and knees with a bayonet. He never forgot the men killed under his command, including his radio operator who was shot dead beside him on a ridge somewhere in Korea. Years later he broke down in tears when telling the story of sailing home under the Golden Gate Bridge without them. Following the war he studied Russian at the Army Language School in California and was subsequently stationed near the East German border where he interviewed defectors and collected intelligence. He served on Army posts throughout Germany and the US, and in Turkey, where he served as a liaison to the Turkish Army. He fathered eight children with his first wife, Betty, who sailed and flew our ever-growing family back and forth across the Atlantic three times, and moved to numerous posts in the US, including Redstone Arsenal, where he worked on the Atlas missile project under Wernher Von Braun. On his second posting to Germany, he befriended the nuns and children of a local orphanage and upon our arrival a year later, took the whole family to meet them. After retiring as a Lt. Colonel, Stuart and Betty divorced, and he moved to Colorado, where many of his children had settled. He remarried in 1994 to Maggie (Edwards) Miller and lived for the rest of his life in Colorado, working a variety of jobs and settling into retirement. He loved his first wife, Betty Catharine, and his second wife, Maggie, through good times and bad. In 1996, his third son Kysa died a tragic death from cancer, and his first wife Betty followed a few months later. His life was filled with happiness and with heartbreak. He loved life and didn’t want to leave. He loved every one of his children: Kenneth, David, Catharine, Alison, Charles (Kysa), Margaret, Robert, and Joseph, and all their spouses. He loved his many grandchildren: Jennifer and Aubrey Miller; Jessica Cronin; Rachel Grace Aganad, Nick and Alec Sands; Nathaniel, Chris, Elspeth, Jack, Sam, and Michael Badertscher; Audrey and Alisa Royem; Arden and Finn Miller; his stepchildren Kathryn Schuessler and her children Shawn, Amber, Rachel and Matthew; and Susan Chapnick, with her children Ethan, Brooke, and Mikayla and her grandchild Landen; his sister-in-law, Peggy Miller; his nephews and nieces, Sam and Jean Dunning and family; and David and Mary Miller and family. He was predeceased by his brother, Kenneth, and his sister, Shirley.

He loved animals, especially dogs, having wandered the streets of Portland, Maine, as a boy with his faithful little Schipperke mix at his side. His all time favorite was Tasha, a Collie/Shepherd mix who adored him and once caught a trout in the Big Thompson River. He was an enthusiastic, undersized athlete who played sports in high school and at West Point. He ran, skied, bicycled, and hiked throughout his life and worked out in the gym until a few months before his death.

A special thanks from our whole family to Nathaniel Badertscher, who cared for his grandfather in his final few days and was at his bedside with Stuart’s wife, Maggie upon his death.

Memorial Mass will be held 10:00 a.m. Friday at St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church. Inurnment Resthaven Memory Gardens. Memorial contributions can be made to Wounded Warriors Project in care of Resthaven Funeral Home, 8426 S. Hwy 287, Fort Collins, CO 80525.

Requiescat in Pace.