Harold L Miller

Harold was born in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, in 1946, to Oscar and Eunice Murphy Miller. A few months later they moved to Pyote, Texas, and Harold always liked to say, "I wasn't born in Texas, but I got here as fast as I could!" He would recall fondly his early years at the “Rattlesnake Bomber Base” in Pyote. He was baptized in 1953 at the Pyote Baptist Church.

Harold’s family, including big sister Elaine and baby sister Alice, later moved to San Antonio, where he excelled in academics at Hot Wells Junior High and Highlands High School. He played trombone in the Highlands band, and fell in love with classmate Deanne Kuba before graduating in the top ten of his class in 1963.

Harold and Deanne were married in San Antonio in 1965. They both attended the University of Texas at Austin, and Harold graduated with honors in 1968 with a B.A. in chemistry.

After graduation, Harold joined the U.S. Air Force, where he trained to fly the F-4 Phantom and earned the distinguished WSO Top Gun award at George AFB. During those early Air Force years his daughters Monique (1969), Kirsten and Ashley (twins, 1970) were born.

In 1971 Harold flew combat missions in the Vietnam war and returned home to become a flight instructor at George AFB. There he also discovered a love of black-and-white photography and produced many beautiful prints of his family and southern California.

In 1974 Harold was selected to attend UT Southwestern Medical School in Dallas, where he completed his MD in 1978 and earned membership in Alpha Omega Alpha, the national medical honor society. He completed his medical internship at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi.

In 1980 he left the Air Force and moved the family to Alpine, Texas, where he began a private practice in general medicine. In Alpine he was an active member of the Kiwanis Club, and he and daughter Monique also played trombone in the Alpine Community Band. Harold and Deanne made lifelong friendships in Alpine, and even though they moved away four years later, Alpine always held a very special place in their hearts.

In 1984 the family relocated to Snyder, Texas, where Harold practiced internal medicine. Snyder was a special place, too, with a wonderful extended family of aunts and uncles to reconnect with, and fun Miller family reunions every summer in Ira.

After the girls graduated from Snyder High School and moved off to college, Harold and Deanne moved to San Angelo for a few years, and then finally returned to their beloved Austin in 1991. There, Harold worked as an ambulatory care physician at Austin Medicenters for a year, and then specialized in Emergency Medicine, covering community hospitals around Texas for 13 years. Ever the renaissance man, he also enrolled in graduate studies in philosophy at UT, spent many hours creating beautiful wheel-thrown pottery, and even ran a small organic farm.

Harold was a man of deep faith, and he and Deanne raised their girls in the Lutheran and Episcopal churches. Having been drawn to the Roman Catholic church for years, he was confirmed at St. Mary’s Cathedral in downtown Austin in April 1995. More recently, while living at a skilled nursing facility outside of Austin, he transferred his membership to St. Martin De Porres Catholic Church in Dripping Springs. He was grateful to the parishioners who brought Holy Communion to the facility residents each week.

In January 2005, Harold opened a small private practice dedicated to serving low-income and uninsured Austinites, which he called “Texas Country Doctor in the City.” Unfortunately, later that year Harold was stricken by a mysterious case of encephalitis and was hospitalized for three months, followed by several more months of rehab. The illness left him with neuropathy, which weakened and eventually disabled him, and he retired from practicing medicine in 2006.

Harold passed away on June 3, 2020, after a two-week battle in the COVID-19 intensive care unit of Ascension Seton Main Hospital, Austin, Texas. He is survived by his daughters, Monique Snyder of Wimberley, Kirsten Miller and husband Kevin Brady of Austin, and Ashley Hand of Austin; sister Alice and husband John Lindley of San Antonio; grandchildren Philip and Cosette Snyder of Wimberley; one nephew and three nieces; numerous cousins and special friends; and the love of his life, Deanne Miller of Wimberley.

He was preceded in death by his parents and sister, Elaine Campbell.

In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation in Harold’s memory to

the Society of St. Vincent de Paul at https://www.ssvdp.org/donate,

or the Seton Foundation COVID-19 Response Fund at https://bit.ly/COVID19-ResponseFund.

UPDATE

A private memorial service will be held at 10:00 a.m. on Friday, June 26th, and will be viewable online at

https://vimeo.com/kirstenmiller