At 96, Miller still loves tales of romance
Ann Norby Miller, 96, always had a soft spot in her heart for tales of love.
"I used to write a lot of stories and send them to romance magazines," she said. "And they sent them all back."
She didn't let that stop her writing aspirations. Miller branched out from the romance genre and sold an article to the religious journal "Evangel" when she was 63.
A couple of years later, George Ostrom hired her to write for the Kalispell Weekly News. She spent the next 20 years penning a weekly column based on 'relevant subjects, recipes and reminiscing."
As a resident of Immanuel Lutheran Home, Miller now writes freelance articles for magazines such as Country. With the approach of Valentine's Day, she turned her journalistic fancy to mining memories of marriage proposals.
"I interviewed people up here," she said. "I had a ball. I'm a romantic at heart. I believe in love and marriage."
Miller unearthed and wrote about heavenly proposals such as the one delivered in a hot air balloon floating across the sky and another delivered on bent knees on Christmas Eve. Others came up short on romance but scored points in honesty.
Miler set the scene of one such proposal.
"The young man was reclining on a couch as he and his girlfriend were watching TV. He asked her to bring him a cold beer, and when she brought it, he looked at her and, with a grin, said, 'How would you like to do this full time?'"
Who could resist that vision of domestic servitude? Apparently one woman couldn't.
Miller was more impressed by the approach of a the middle-aged Romeo who staged his proposal with music, flowers and candlelight and asked on bent knees. But Miller said a small hitch developed.
"Of course she said 'yes' and then his creaky old knees betrayed him and she had to help him back on his feet," Miller wrote.
She recounted the tale of another man with a win-win plan. He promised to buy his beloved a wedding ring if she wanted to marry or a consolation prize of a new gun for himself if she didn't.
Either way, he emerged a happier man.
After 96 years of life, Miller remains convinced that everyone has a special someone destined to share life's journey. But she admits finding Mr. or Ms. Right takes some perseverance.
Miller reviewed her own tortured path to true love in a piece she called "To all the Boys I loved Before … and After."
She remembered her first love, a 12-year-old Swedish hunk named Leonard. He won her heart with a valentine and a handful of jellybeans still warm from his pocket.
More prospects were to come and go, to the great angst of her South Dakota father with multiple mouths to feed.
One, Charley, actually came on a white charger bearing a box of Whitman's candy in a white flour sack tied to the saddle horn. But he eventually headed off to seek his fortune in a Texas oil field, never to return.
Charley's best friend, Floyd, stepped in to mend her broken heart. He arrived in a roadster with a rumble seat for double dates.
"We had a great year until a well-endowed school teacher from Ekalaka, Montana, entered the picture," Miller recalled. "Floyd succumbed to her obvious charms, and I was left high and dry once more."
Her next prospect was Oscar, a handsome, accordion-playing, smooth-dancing Viking with a fast car. But her dad threw cold water on that sizzling romance because Oscar was 12 years older than his daughter.
He impugned Oscar's intentions based on his own when he dated a woman 12 years younger than himself - eventually his wife and mother of his 13 children.
With visions of "old maid" in her mind at age 23, she was elated when a romance rekindled with a boy she had admired in high school, Woodrow Wilson Miller. As a hard-working farmer, he drove just an old Chevy but had the skill to keep it running.
She described his marriage proposal as not so much a "will you" as a "when are we going to" question. The answer was Sept. 28, 1935 in Bison, S.D.
Because of the Depression, it was a simple ceremony followed by dinner at a restaurant.
"We came out here on a shoestring and lost the shoestring on the way," Miller said. "We had a good life together."
Their romance produced three children and lasted 67 years until Woodrow died at 90 in 2002. He supported the family as a carpenter who worked on the elegant east side homes and later owned his own cabinet shop.
Miller moved to Immanuel Lutheran Home about five years ago. She enjoys living at the home, where she claims the staffers spoil the residents, tending to all of their physical, emotional and spiritual needs.
When not involved in activities such as Red Hat meetings, she spends a lot of time reflecting on her life.
"I have learned more in the last five years," Miller said. "You have time to think. You realize all the things you did wrong, all the things you did right and all the things you wish you had done."
Based on her experiences, Miller gives a lot of advice such as "kill your spouse with kindness - you'll never regret it." She writes her advice in four-liners she calls "thumb prints." For example:
"Keep working on your marriage,
keep full the loving cup.
And when you're wrong admit it,
and when you're not shut up."
As far as what she would change, Miller said she wishes she had spent more time playing with her husband and family and less time working, even though she said the family had many good times together.
One thing Miller said she would never change was marrying Woodrow.
"I wouldn't have traded him for Clark Gable."
Reporter Candace Chase may be reached at 758-4436 or by e-mail at cchase@dailyinterlake.com.