Maxine H. Miller

Maxine Hibbs Miller
Maxine H. Miller was born February 22, 1920 to Clyde Anderson Hibbs and Phebe Alice Stanfield Hibbs in Alton, Kansas. She had two older sisters Evelyn and Louise, and an older brother Bill. She moved to Colorado at a young age and lived most of her life in the Denver area. She graduated from Manual High School in 1937. On September 2, 1939 she married William Gordon Miller in Edgewater, Colorado. Maxine worked her whole career from 1944-1975 for the Colorado Department of Employment. She started as a typist and advanced to Personnel Officer.
After her husband Bill passed away in 1976 she travelled with friends and her sister, Louise. They went on several cruises and other trips. Her favorite things were music, dancing, reading, flowers (especially roses), sports (football, baseball, basketball), lovely shoes, and visiting with family and friends. Maxine was a very loving and caring aunt to her many nieces, nephew, and all their families.
Maxine H. Miller passed away peacefully at home at age 98 on Thursday, August 23, 2018 in Lakewood, Colorado. Her final resting place is Crown Hill Cemetery in Wheat Ridge, Colorado.
Graveside services will be at 11:00 am on Tues. Sept. 4, 2018 at Olinger Crown Hill (W. 29th Ave. and Wadsworth).

Life History of Maxine Hibbs Miller

Maxine Hibbs Miller's life story was completed in 2013 by her niece Shirley Ames using pictures and personal information provided by Maxine.

My life has spanned nearly a century of significant change in our country. I rode in some of the first mass-produced automobiles, lived through the Great Depression, witnessed the results of many wars, viewed men landing on the moon, and saw incredible advancements in technology and science.
I was born in Alton, Kansas, in Osbourne County to Clyde Anderson Hibbs and Phebe Alice Stanfield Hibbs. I am Maxine Hibbs. There is no middle name on my birth certificate. My birthday is called a palindrome – February 22, 1920. It reads the same forward and backward (02-22-20). I am the youngest member of my family and had two sisters, Ruby Evelyn and Anna Louise, and one brother, William Benjamin (Bill).

My parents married quite young; Mom was 16 and Dad was 20. They were married on February 14, 1907, in Mt. Ayr Township, Kansas. On Sundays they attended the Quaker Church in Mt. Ayr. Dad was a quiet man but he could sing. He sang in the choir and Mom played the pump organ.

My grandma Johnson bought an orange grove in Texas. Mom and Dad and several other couples traveled to Texas and California following the orange harvests. Mom told the story of Dad buying a new bicycle and wrecking it when looking at some pretty girl. After a few years they were back in Alton, Kansas. Dad ran a threshing machine and Mom cooked for the crew. After three years we moved to Oakley, Kansas. Dad worked at a dairy and Mom in a restaurant. Evelyn married Fred Ehrlich in 1925.

When I was 2 years old my brother Bill and some friends were playing baseball in the yard. Mom was sitting on the front porch holding me. I decided to jump down and run behind the batter. He didn't see me. As he swung the bat he hit me in the mouth and knocked out my 4 upper front teeth. The doctor informed Mom that I might never have permanent teeth due to the injury. Luckily when I was 9 years old my teeth started to come in. I was the happiest kid on the block and was very thrilled. The big thing I remember during those 7 years is that I couldn't eat corn on the cob!
Times were hard so Dad went to LaSalle, Colorado, to get a job with the Union Pacific Railroad. His job was adding lime and soda ash to water to purify it for use in the steam engine tanks. He let us know he had a place for us to live and said we should come to LaSalle. I was 6 years old. We got there and found out our new home was a box car close to the tracks! It had running water in a faucet outside, two rooms, and kerosene lamps for light. My sister Louise and I slept in a high iron bed in the kitchen. Mom, Dad and my brother Bill slept in the other room. Bill slept on a cot next to our one and only dresser. Mom did manage to find space for her piano.
I had a brindle colored bulldog named Duke. I liked him a lot. Johnny Anderson, Louise's boyfriend, came over one day and accidentally ran over him. What a sad day. I didn't play with dolls much as a kid so I really missed Duke, a real friend. While Dad worked, Mom worked in a café and fed a lot of railroad workers. Later she opened a café on Main Street. She made really good pies, and my favorite was her chocolate pie. I wasn't a picky eater but I didn't like soft cooked eggs. I called them bloody eggs and didn't want any, thank you.
We always celebrated the holidays the best we could with what we had. Thanksgiving fare was sometimes chicken and dressing instead of turkey. At Christmas time Santa always came to our house first, so we always opened our presents on Christmas Eve right after supper. For Easter, Mom always made me a new dress. She was quite an accomplished seamstress. Times were hard and when my hose got a run I had to sew them up and keep wearing them. Everyone else did the same. One Christmas I got $1.00 to buy Christmas presents for the family. I spent 50? for 6 drinking glasses, 30? for 3 handkerchiefs, and 20? for a pair of earrings.
Louise and Johnny got married on April 3, 1929, in Greeley. Their mothers were the witnesses. They farmed near LaSalle. After a few years, Dad lost his job with the railroad and was doing odd jobs, so in 1932 Mom, Bill and I moved to Greeley, where Mom and Bill worked at a cleaning shop. I was in the seventh grade. Then in need of more work, Mom and Bill moved to Denver. They worked in a shop on 16th Street. Mom did alterations on clothing and Bill pressed clothes at the Shirley Savoy Hotel in the cleaning shop. Mom and Dad drifted apart and he didn't move to Denver. Instead, he moved to Kit Carson, CO, for another railroad job. They were divorced quietly several years later.
While in Kit Carson, Dad got reacquainted with a lady named Evelyn whom he had met years earlier. Her husband had died and Dad was single so they became friends and were married after World War II in 1947. They eventually moved to California and lived the rest of their lives there.
I started grade school in LaSalle. I went to Sunday school at the First Presbyterian Church. I went to 7th grade in Greeley. I always loved to sing and especially wanted to sing in the triple trio for the Christmas program, so I lived with my music teacher in Greeley. Then in January, 1933, I moved to Denver with Mom and attended Cole Junior High School for 8th and 9th grades. I sang in a trio and was the class treasurer.
Manual High School was next from 1934 to 1937. There I was in Chorus and sang in another triple trio. Other activities included dancing. Everyone danced. We danced in the gym during study hall and lunch. The black students had to dance in a room on the second floor. Sometimes we switched places but were always segregated. It was just the way of life. IQ tests were taken and the senior students with the higher IQ were chosen for Progressive Education. I was lucky enough to be included in the program. We got to choose classes that were not on the curriculum. We chose evolution instead of history, and we got to learn Greek Mythology and Shakespeare instead of English. My teacher, Prudence Bostwick, loved Shakespeare, read it and cried. We also took Spanish, typing, shorthand, and business math.

High School went by fast. I had lots of friends at Manual and met William Gordon Miller (Bill) in September of 1935. We started dating. I was 17 when I graduated in 1937. Mom and I lived in an apartment building on West 14th Avenue and Kalamath Street. Her job was to shovel coal (tons of it) in the stoker furnace to make steam to keep everyone warm. That was hard work and never-ending. She was paid $25/month plus the apartment. I registered at the Emily Griffith Opportunity School employment office and was able to get temporary jobs. We also lived at 1530 Pearl Street, where Mom continued to shovel coal in the furnace. In March of 1938 I got a job typing at the National Army Store. Bill and I were still dating and decided to get married on September 2, 1939, in Edgewater, Co, close to Denver. Mom lived with us on East 19th Avenue between Downing and Ogden and worked in the laundry at Children's Hospital across the street. Bill worked in the warehouse at a Walgreens store and went to night school at CU Denver to be a civil engineer. Then he worked for the State Highway Department and was on a survey crew for the Denver Arsenal, which is now a wildlife refuge.
In the years that followed, Bill and I did not have children but we loved our dogs. We got Ragsy when we lived in Chaffee Park. He looked just like a pile of rags. We got Sam when we lived at 2935 Vance Street in 1953. When we moved to 1695 Youngfield Court in Golden in 1962, Bill got Alvin. He had distemper and we had to take him back to the Dumb Friends League. Then we had our poodle, Napoleon or Nappy for short. On one visit to Gould to visit the Anderson family, my niece Debbie managed to hide a kitten under the seat in our car. Our dog, Sam, was having fits in the car. Bill thought he was sick so stopped to let him out. He jumped back in and was still restless all the way to Denver. The kitten was quiet under the seat and we didn't know we had her until we got home. We named her Samantha and she lived to be 23 years old.
My brother Bill had moved to California and lived with Uncle Vern and Aunt Myrrl Stanfield, Mom's brother and his wife. It was there that he met Fay Nell Taylor. They got married in Las Vegas in 1940 and lived in California for a time before moving to Oklahoma. Bill was in the Army during World War II. He followed General George Patton's Army into Germany as a medic and drove an ambulance.
In March of 1942 I took the Civil Service examination. I got a job at Lowry Air Force Base in April. There I worked in Hanger Number Two in Sub-Depot Engineering as an Assistant Manager, working a variety of eight-hour shifts. We were responsible for maintenance and repair of aircraft going to England to be flown in the war over Germany. I worked there until January 1944. It was really hard to alternate the three eight-hour shifts and try to sleep at different times.
At the same time, my husband Bill was serving in the Army Air Force. He had enlisted and did his basic training in San Antonio, Texas. He was sent to England and assigned as a bombardier on a B-24 aircraft flying over Germany. After many flights Bill became ill with fatigue and flu. He spent six weeks in the hospital in England. He recovered and went back to the B-24. The plane had escorts but Bill thought they were the enemy and started to shoot at them. Needless to say, he still had battle fatigue, was grounded and never flew again. After the war, Bill was in the Reserves. In 1947 he transferred from the Reserves to the Air National Guard. He got a job with the Bureau of Reclamation as a civil engineer and worked there until retirement.
On D-Day, June 6th, 1944, I was called to work at the Colorado Department of Employment as a result of a state test I had taken. I was a junior clerk typist and did general office work as well as working at the switchboard. I was in the wage record section, where earnings of workers in Colorado were reported by their Social Security numbers. Taxes were paid for unemployment compensation. I worked there until 1956 when I was promoted to the Personnel Office as a clerk typist. In 1965 I was again promoted to Assistant Personnel Officer.
In 1951, during the Korean Conflict, Bill Miller was stationed in Oklahoma. My brother Bill also lived in Oklahoma, so I wanted to go visit them. Johnny said he would drive his Buick. It was a full load including Johnny and Louise, Mom, Nina, Shirley, Ilene, and me! Ilene was just a year old and kept saying "I want to walk around".
Bill was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Air National Guard. He thought he might have to deploy to Vietnam, so in 1968 we sold our house at 1695 Youngfield Court in Golden and bought our condo at 2630 South Sheridan Court. As it turned out, his squadron was the only one that didn't go to Vietnam.
Life went on and we attended a lot of Bronco games. We had season tickets from the time the Broncos were established. We bought a motor home to drive to the games. We went early and stayed late to avoid a lot of traffic. We also attended CU football games.
Back at work I became the Personnel Officer in 1973. That year my mother passed away in November. She had always lived with me, so it was a very sad time in my life. I retired in 1975 after 31 years at the Colorado Department of Employment. Bill retired in August of 1975.
We bought a condo in Dillon, Co, expecting to spend time there but Bill died of a stroke on February 21, 1976. It was the day before my birthday, so it is bittersweet even now. I kept the condo for about two years. Nina and Garrett Ray went a few times. My friends, Betty and Mary Crawford, and I went several times. Bill and Mary Anderson enjoyed it too.
After Bill died I traveled with Mary Babbit. Our first trip was to Greece. In May we went to Las Vegas and in October we went to Reno. I enjoyed playing golf with Mary and our friends Walt and Fran Koenig. After Johnny Anderson died in 1978, Louise and I went to Loveland to dance along with Lillie Kelly, Johnny's sister, and Irma Anderson, Johnny's sister-in-law, and her boyfriend Ralph, on Sunday afternoons. Pete Oley entertained often with his organ music. It was such fun! I never lost my love of dancing.
I had good times with Betty and Mary Crawford and Mary Babbit. We went on a Caribbean Cruise in 1978. In 1979 Betty, Mary and I went on a cruise through the Panama Canal. We had a choice of spending the day in Panama City or staying on the ship. We chose to stay on the ship and watch as it went through the canal. It took all day and was very interesting. We danced a lot and I won a huge bottle of Champagne dancing the Viennese waltz. This cruise also included the Caribbean islands. Another trip was taken with Betty and Mary to Monument Valley and Canyon de Chelly in Arizona. We took a bus tour of the river beds. Betty and Mary wanted to buy Indian rugs. They were always buying a lot of things.
I went with Walt Slanec for a time. We had worked at the same place, in the Colorado Department of Employment. He was a body builder and liked doing yoga. We took a trip to Hawaii once. We were considering getting married when he became ill with lymphoma and died in March of 1981.
Betty, Mary, Isabelle Vecchiarelli, and I went to the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs one Saturday for lunch and to listen to the trio in the Broadmoor Tavern. That is where I met Mike Templin, piano player, in 1983. We became friends and he moved to Lakewood and rented an apartment close to my condo. We traveled to Hawaii every year and took six cruises. After 9-11 we started going to Bonita Beach, Florida. We went there five separate years. It was such a long drive to Florida that we decided to drive to Espanola, New Mexico, instead. I enjoy playing the quarter slot machines as well as eating good Mexican food. We went two or three times a year. We drive up to Black Hawk now. It is just a short hour drive up Clear Creek Canyon. The food is good and there are lots of slot machines there and I am still winning!
Now, I stay at home a lot of the time because at age 93, I don't get around as easily as I once did. I still live in my condo that was purchased in 1968. I still have my car, a 1989 Cadillac, but don't drive any more. I love to listen to Mike play the piano and enjoy all kinds of music. We watch a lot of sports on TV and I'm still a big Bronco Fan!

The years have gone by so fast. My health has been declining for the last year. My sight, hearing and memory are not as good as they used to be. On February 22nd, I celebrated my 98th birthday. Several family members and care givers helped me celebrate. My appetite has always been good and I always perk up when family come to visit me. They are all so generous with bringing food for the day plus extra meals.
I am staying at home with more and more help from Hospice and Namaste. I've had continuous loving care from my devoted friend Mike Templin for some 30 years.
My body finally just wore out and I left this earth August 23, 2018. My final resting place is between my mother and my husband, under a large shade tree, at Crown Hill Cemetery in Wheat Ridge, Colorado.
God Bless my entire family.