Grace Ann Miller

1943 - 2024

Grace Ann Miller

July 12, 1943 - January 3, 2024

State College, Pennsylvania - Grace Ann Fogle Miller

The physical life of Grace Miller, 80, ended on January 3rd, 2024, in Foxdale Village's memory care neighborhood, where she had been lovingly cared for since February of 2020. She had lived during recent months with an aggressive cancer in addition to her Alzheimer's disease.

Grace was born in Wheeling, West Virginia, on July 12, 1943. She was the fourth of the five children of Reverend Maurice and Elizabeth Fogle, after sisters Lois, Ellen, and Elaine, and before brother Dale. After growing up in Dayton and Elyria, Ohio, Grace earned a bachelor's degree in English at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, where she met and married her husband Douglas Miller in 1964. She began a teaching career in Bloomington, Indiana, while Doug was pursuing doctoral studies; they lived for one year in Gorham, Maine, where their son David was born; and then they moved to State College in 1969. Soon thereafter their daughter Kristin was born in the Bellefonte hospital.

During her nearly three-decade English teaching career at State College High School, Grace was dedicated to 9th graders, as they blossomed from incoming high schoolers into confident young people. She also founded State High's journalism curriculum and served as the school newspaper's advisor for over a decade.

Grace and Doug lived for twenty years in the home they built on a hilltop in the Bald Eagle Valley. In retirement they lived for twelve more years at Kris's family's vineyard/winery in York County, before moving back to State College and Foxdale Village in 2018.

As Quakers, Grace and Doug have been active members of the State College Friends Meeting since the 1970s and have been "Held in the Light" by its members over the past half century, especially during the past few years of Grace's illness.

Grace's family cannot fully express how grateful we are to the professional medical staff at Foxdale Village who gave dignity, meaning, and loving care to Grace during the past four years. We cannot imagine that any of the millions of Earth's inhabitants living with Alzheimer's disease could have lived their last months and years with more skillful and caring fellow humans providing their care.

A Quaker celebration of Grace's life will be held in the auditorium at Foxdale Village at 3:00 p.m. on Sunday, January 14. Grace's friends, colleagues, and former students are invited to attend and share their memories of our dear wife, mother, and grandmother. She will be memorialized in private occasions at Halfmoon Friends Cemetery near Stormstown and in Grace's Grove at Cadenza Vineyards in York County.

Grace is held in perpetual love by husband Doug; son David and his wife Lisa Bebey and daughter Maizie in Burlington, CT; daughter, Kris, her husband Carl Helrich, and sons Carl and Dylan and Dylan's wife Tati in Brogue, PA; and her siblings and siblings' families. Rest in peace, Grace. Thank you for all the ways you have enriched our lives and the lives of others.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to PAWS (https://www.centrecountypaws.org/), Pets Come First (https://petscomefirst.net/), or another animal welfare organization in honor of Grace.