Walter Clarence Miller

He was born to Leroy Darling Miller and Vada Lee Cooksey on May 26, 1948 in Memphis, TN. Walter attended Messick High School in Memphis, and after graduation in 1967, he joined the Marine Corps Reserves, where during boot camp he earned a sharp shooter badge, after which he successfully completed Marines Air Traffic Control Training.

After an honorable discharge from the Marine Corps, he spent most of his adult life as an over-the-road truck driver for Yellow Freight.

Walter loved the simple things in life which included spending time with his family, listening to music, playing the guitar, mandolin, and harmonica, sharing a cup of coffee with a friend or two at the CK’s Coffee shop or the Waffle House, and spending time outdoors. However, there was much more to Walter than what meets the eye. He was a very deep thinker and a bona fide math wizard and engineer, channeling the likes of Confucius and Plato, with an ever-increasing curiosity and hunger to learn and expand his knowledge and understanding of the world, the universe and God. He applied this knowledge to seek and engineer solutions to “everyday problems”. Walter’s motto was: why buy something off the shelf if you can invent and build something better (and more complicated) yourself! Examples of this were a homemade manual trolley garage-door opening system, and an ingenious battery-operated vertically raised and lowered backyard gate. He even wrote a book, “The 500 second problem,” which was a combination of math, philosophy, and religion.

Along with his parents, Walter was preceded in death by his wife Tarna Orr Miller and his sister Carol Nance.

Walter is survived by his children Kimberly (Erik) Bonten, Garrett Miller, and Matthew Miller, his sisters Tina (Bobby) Lantrip and Robin (Gary) Kopp, eight nieces & nephews, and twelve grand-nieces & nephews.

The family will receive friends on Tuesday, February 25, 2025, from 1:00 pm until 2:00 pm with services immediately following at Family Funeral Care, 4925 Summer Ave, Memphis, TN 38122. Walter's interment will follow at Memphis Memory Gardens, 6444 Raleigh Lagrange Road, Memphis, TN 38134.