Adeline C. Miller

Adeline C. (Metzler) Miller, 93 of Devils Lake passed away on Monday evening, March 6, 2017 at Eventide Heartland Care Center, Devils Lake. Memorial Service for Adeline will be held on Saturday, April 1, 2017 at 10:30 a.m. at St. Olaf Lutheran Church, Devils Lake with Reverend Jim Paulson officiating. Burial will be in the Devils Lake Cemetery. Adeline Christine Metzler was born on January 13, 1924 in Chicago, Illinois, the youngest of Christine and Rudolph Metzler’s three children. Both of her parents were Austrian, and Christine brought many of her eleven siblings from Austria to Chicago, so Adeline grew up surrounded by aunts, uncles, and cousins.   Adeline’s first job after high school was in the transit department of the Continental Illinois National Bank and Trust Company in downtown Chicago. While working there in 1941, she met Kenneth Earl Miller, a musician and farmer from North Dakota at a dance at the Paradise Ballroom.  That first winter they danced to Lawrence Welk’s orchestra at the Trianon and Aragon ballrooms.  While corresponding for several years, the two fell in love, and in 1944, Adeline married Kenny at Belmont Park Evangelical Lutheran Church in Chicago.    They moved to his parent’s homestead northeast of Devils Lake and purchased it in 1945. Although born in the city, Adeline fell in love with the countryside and farm life.  North Dakota became her adopted home.  She learned how to become a farmer’s wife, raising a garden, canning, helping in the fields, and hauling grain.   The family moved to River Forest outside of Chicago for five years in 1955 so that Kenny could pursue his music and a career in barbering. In 1961 the family returned to North Dakota and farming.  Kenny continued his life as a professional musician, and music and dancing were central to the couple’s lives through almost 57 years of marriage until his death in 2001.   In addition to being the co-manager of the Miller farm, in 1966 Adeline started working part-time for Ness Press. In 1971 she began employment as an elementary school teacher’s aide and secretary for Prairie View School in Devils Lake.   A woman of enormous vitality, Adeline was a dynamic member of St. Olaf Lutheran Church, WELCA, Eagles Lodge Auxiliary, VFW Auxiliary, Rebekahs, the Pioneer Daughters, and was an active member with Kenny in the Elks.  She was a charter member of the Chautauqua Sweet Adeline’s Chorus and a charter member and organizer of the Prairie View Homemakers.  She self-published a remembrance of her life in her book Hills of Home in 2014.   In addition to sewing, quilting, various arts and crafts projects, and traveling, Adeline was a card shark with a skill refined by the many card parties with her childhood Chicago relatives and the rural farm families in Minnewauken Township NE of Devils Lake. While she was able, a favorite activity was an evening playing poker with the men at the Eagles.  Till her death she played Canasta with her grandchildren with such gusto that they recalled with relish those few times even in adulthood when they could actually beat her at a game.   On September 1979 she lost her left foot and lower leg in a grain auger accident at the end of a long harvest day. Following her recovery, for decades she was a frequent visitor, speaker, and mentor to the many people being treated for accidents at the UND rehabilitation center in Grand Forks.  In 1982, she and Kenny retired from active farm life and spent the winter months in St. Petersburg, Florida until 2012 when she returned year-round to Devils Lake.     Adeline was preceded in death by her parents, her youngest child Eric, her husband Kenny, and her two brothers Arthur and Martin. She is survived by her son Douglas K. Miller and daughter-in-law Carol Healey, her daughter Lynn C. Miller and daughter-in-law Lynda Miller, her three grandsons Kieran Miller, Ryan Miller and wife Natalie, and Chris Miller, and many nieces and nephews including Kathy Miller and John Sletteland.    Donations can be made in lieu of flowers to the Altru Rehabilitation Center in Grand Forks.