Judith Lynne Miller
November 5, 1924 - January 20, 2016

JUDITH LYNNE (GUSTAFSON) MILLER
Judith Lynne Miller (née Gustafson) was born November 5, 1924 in Iron Mountain, Michigan, to parents Arvid Leonard Gustafson and Garda Olive Gustafson (née Andersen). Her parents emigrated from Sweden in 1914.
Judy was the youngest of five siblings, with brothers Inger ("Mink") and Walter ("Ole"), and sisters Margaret and LaVerne. She was the only one to break away from the Iron Mountain area during her lifetime, bravely heading off to nursing school in Chicago after high school in the midst of World War II. There, she met and began a life-long friendship with Beverly Weymer (née Clementi).
Following graduation from nursing school, she again took a brave leap and boarded a train west to Spokane, Washington, the closest she could get to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho--just because she liked the name Coeur d'Alene. She got a job at a hospital in Spokane and through mutual friends (the Reitzels) met Marshall Wayne Miller, whom she married January 22, 1955. On October 21 of 1956 she gave birth to the first of her two beloved daughters, Lynne Sheri Miller.
After moving to the Seattle area (first to Vashon Island and later to Des Moines), they were blessed with another daughter, Kimberly Candice Miller, on June 15, 1958. In 1965 the family moved to Bellevue, Washington, where they remained up to the present day. Marshall preceded her in death March 27, 2005.
Judy gave up her nursing career to care for her two children--a task she did both well and joyfully. The other great joy of her life (and her husband's) was animals--a passion they passed down to both of their daughters. Although she leaves behind no grandchildren, she was a doting "grandmother" to many, many furred and feathered creatures and spent much of her life petsitting and nurturing the various pets that followed her family home.
Judy traveled extensively with her husband by air, land and sea, and naturally animals played a part in that too as she went on safari in Africa and lodged at home-stay sheep farms in New Zealand. Other travels were too numerous to mention but included visits to Beijing, Paris, Moscow, Istanbul and Fiji.
When at home, she enjoyed exercising her green thumb on flowers from African Violets to geraniums, family bicycle rides, Mariners baseball games, and boating trips to the San Juan Islands.
Always a nurturer, she spent her later years caring for her two sisters, boarding a train once again to bring them west for their final days. After her husband's passing in 2005, her daughter Lynne moved home and took on the nurturing role throughout mom's long decline with dementia. Lynne kept mom active and interested in life in ways both large and small, taking her on picnics, trips to the park, trips to Ocean Shores with the family's dogs, to visit Kim in Idaho and other adventures.
Judy's Achilles heels were always potato chips and chocolate, and no Easter bunny was safe when she was around. (Her daughters regularly received theirs on Easter morning with ears missing.) She enjoyed music from Kenny Rogers to Korla Pandit to Inglebert Humperdink and endured music from Kim's accordion to Lynne's flute and both girls' organ playing.
Barely 5 feet tall in her prime and with her soft voice and fair Swedish complexion, her daughters were frequently told that their mother was "so cute." And she was, although she also had a temper and wasn't above delivering a tongue-lashing to fast-food drive-through servers who forgot her French fries. (Thereafter known as "French Fry Moments.")
Judy is survived by daughters Lynne Sheri Miller of Bellevue, Washington, and Kimberly Candice St. Ours of Caldwell, Idaho, by nephews Meredith and Gary Ault of Spokane, and by niece Tina Francis of Iron Mountain, Michigan.
If you wish, mom would have appreciated a donation to your favorite local (not national) animal welfare agency or to IDAWG. Idaho Domestic Animal Welfare Group, P.O. Box 9175, Nampa, Idaho 83652, a tax-deductible 501(c)3 charity.

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