Miller, Orie O. (1893-1977)

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 1977 Jan 13 p. 1, 3

Birth date: 1892 July 7

text of obituary

Many-Sided Life of Service

Death Claims Long-Time MCC Executive, Churchman

ORIE O. MILLER, 84, executive secretary emeritus of the Mennonite Central Committee, died Monday evening, Jan. 10, at the Landis Retirement Home near Lancaster, Pa., the Review has been informed by MCC Headquarters at Akron, Pa.

Death came after several years of failing health due to Parkinson's disease. He had lived at the retirement home since 1972.

Funeral services will be conducted at 1:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 15, at the Ephrata (Pa.) Mennonite Church, of which he was a long-time member.

ONE OF THE FOUNDERS of the Mennonite Central Committee in 1920, Miller was known throughout the Mennonite world as the person mainly responsible for its expansion into a world-wide relief and service agency supported by all of the major Mennonite groups in North America as well as the Brethren in Christ Church.

A man of multiple talents, Miller made important contributions as an administrator, churchman, educator, mission leader, industrialist, and innovator of a variety of church programs. His MCC and church ministries took him on frequent trips to far places of the world.

His active association with the MCC spanned nearly half a century.

He was assistant to the MCC secretary from 1921 to 1935, and served as executive secretary for 22 years, from 1935 to 1957. He was associate executive secretary, 1957-1963, and in 1963 he was made a life member.

DURING HIS YEARS as executive secretary he gave leadership to the development of a world-wide program of relief for victims of war, famine and disaster, to resettlement programs for refugees, the initiation and administration of the Civilian Public Service program for conscientious objectors during World War II, and establishment of a mental health program under MCC auspices.

Among the ministries and other organizations which he initiated or helped initiate were the leprosy mission in Paraguay, Operation Doctor in the Congo, Mennonite Economic Development Associates, Mennonite Mental Health Services, Mennonite

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FORMER EXECUTIVE SECY. DIES

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Mutual Aid, Menno Travel Service, Mennonite Indemnity, the Africa Mennonite Conference, and the Council of Mission Board Secretaries.

A NATIVE of Middlebury, Ind., Miller graduated from Goshen College in 1915. For much of his life he was associated with the Miller-Hess Shoe Company at Akron, Pa., dividing his time between the business and his church and service involvements.

He was a member of the first overseas relief team sent out by the Mennonite Church, serving in the Near East in 1919-1920. From 1920 to 1921 he headed the three-member relief team which the newly formed MCC sent to help the Mennonites in Russia suffering from revolution and famine.

While assistant to the MCC secretary, 1921 to 1935, he was a leader in resettlement of Russian Mennonite immigrants in Canada and, beginning in 1930, in Paraguay and later Uruguay.

MILLER PLAYED an important role in higher education developments in the Mennonite Church. A long-time officer of the Eastern Mennonite Board of Missions and Charities, he helped locate the first overseas field of that board in East Africa in 1933-34. Later, through his MCC work, he was closely associated with Mennonite mission developments in many parts of the world.

Miller's first marriage was to Elta Wolf of Akron, Pa. in 1915. She died in 1958. In 1960 he married Mrs. Elta Sensenig, who survives.

Also surviving are one daughter, Mrs. Ronald (Lois) Beach of Doylestown, Pa.; four sons, Albert of Akron, Pa., Daniel of Montevideo, Uruguay, John of Kitchener, Ont., and Robert of Evanston, Ill.; 17 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.

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Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 1977 Jan 13 p. 4

Tribute to MCC Leader

Gifts of Administration, Foresight Used in Service to Church and World

By Sarah Ann Ery

 Early in the blustery winter evening of Jan. 10, Orie O. Miller slipped quietly from a coma to his death at Landis Retirement Home near Lancaster, Pa. Born July 7, 1892, at Middlebury, Ind., he was 84. The following article, a joint release by MCC and the Eastern Mennonite Board of Missions and Charities, pays tribute to this man who with great vision and energy helped to lead the Mennonite church on its pilgrimage through a large portion of the 20th century.

“EVERYTHING," was Orie O. Miller's one-word reply when asked by Mennonite Central Committee staff in May of 1969 what Christ and the Christian faith meant to him. Anyone doubting the profound sincerity of that simplistic response has only to look at the list of 65 church-related leadership positions he held during his life—some as long as 45 years.

A Bible, the Mennonite Yearbook and a world map, the three musts which Orie Miller always carried in his briefcase, form the framework within which he lived his life.

The son of a minister, Daniel D. Miller, Orie had in his earlier years felt called to either the ministry or the mission field. However, although he was in the lot several times at his home church, Ephrata (Pa.) Mennonite, he was never chosen. Nor did the opportunity for a career in missions ever materialize.

“I HAVE for years felt that I have been called to missionary work, and always felt that the evangelistic end of that work would appeal to me most." he complained in a March 1919 letter to George J. Lapp. “But every new place I get, they stick me where money is to be counted, to be kept record of or to be spent."

That was Orie Miller's gift—-administration. "In my estimation one dimension of his greatness was in relationship to institutions—his ability to create them and equally his ability to make them function within his expectations," comments Edgar Stoesz, an associate executive secretary at MCC who worked with Orie in MCC, Mennonite Mutual Aid and Mennonite Indemnity Inc.

ORIE’S EXCEPTIONAL gifts in administration and foresight have helped to mold the Mennonite church in many areas. A member of the Mennonite Board of Education for 45 years, he was active in bringing Goshen College, his alma mater, through its time of crisis in the mid-1920s and a campus building has been named for him. In the early 1930s he helped to reorganize the business office of Hesston College and to find a new president.

On a broader scope he has served with the board of directors for New York Biblical Seminary, as vice-chairman of the National Service Board for Religious Objectors, as the first chairman of the Schowalter Foundation and as board member of the American Leprosy Mission.

BUT RELIEF and mission work remained closest to Orie Miller's heart. On Jan. 25, 1919, he left his wife, Elta Wolf Miller, and tiny daughter Lois behind to join six other young men in Middle East war relief work for over a year.

Orie's administrative gifts were soon recognized and he moved up quickly through the ranks of administration, becoming director of the entire Syrian operation of Near East Relief by the following September.

On his way home from the Middle East he met four Russian Mennonites in Switzerland who had brought news of their suffering and pleas for help to European and American Mennonites. Soon the Mennonite Relief Commission in the United States was asking him to consider leadership of a Russian relief unit.

“WHEN I THINK of how really difficult it will be on the other side to accomplish what we have in mind, and then of how much the church expects, it makes me tremble and hesitate," One responded. "The plans will get a tremendous set-back if you drop out." countered Vernon Smucker on behalf of the Relief Commission. "Of course it will be a hard job, but that is no reason for getting faint. Your training ought to enable you to tackle hard jobs."

Smucker was right, and Orie Miller was soon in the thick of the formation of MCC and planning its initial relief effort in the Soviet Union. With Arthur Slagel of Flanagan, Ill. and Clayton Kratz of Perkasie, Pa., he left for Russia on Sept. 1, 1920.

ORIE’S INTEREST in Mennonite refugees from Russia never ended. He helped North American Mennonites trying to get relatives out of Russia, and served on the executive committee of the Colonization Board organized at Newton, Kan. in 1923.

When Mennonites in Paraguay wanted to do something in appreciation of their willing reception by the Paraguay government, Orie Miller helped them work with the American Leprosy Mission to organize a leprosy treatment center.

When in 1924 MCC was established as a permanent organization, Miller was involved in its administration and continued in a leadership role until retiring in 1963 at which time he was named life member and later executive secretary emeritus.

“ORIE MILLER was Mr. MCC and he still holds this place in the minds and hearts of Mennonite people of all branches,” comments Paul Erb in Orie O. Miller: The Story of a Man and an Era.

Orie Miller's interest in relief went hand-in-hand with his interest in missions which focused on the Eastern Mennonite Board of Missions and Charities, organized in 1914 by the Lancaster Conference.

In 1924 Orie became the first editor of the mission board's publication, the Missionary Messenger and one year later he was elected a member of the board as well as vice-president of the board.

ONE OF HIS most far-reaching endeavors with Eastern Mennonite Board was the board's first overseas program in Africa. Orie went with Elam and Elizabeth Stauffer and John and Ruth Mosemann to Africa in December 1933 to find the location of that mission. The two couples remained behind to open a mission station in what was then Tanganyika along the eastern coast of Lake Victoria.

Throughout the next decades Orie provided leadership in opening new mission programs in Africa and Asia and in helping missionaries gradually turn churches over to local leadership.

In 1958 Orie stepped down as Secretary of Eastern Board. However, he continued as a member of the executive committee, and made the last public appearance of his life at a session of this board in December 1976.

A THIRD IDEA to which Orie was dedicated was peace. Following World War I he encouraged the

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Tribute to MCC Leader

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Mennonite Peace Problems Committee to continue although other Mennonite leaders thought its usefulness had ended. "Other wars are coming." he said.

That prophecy proved true and as World War II approached, Orie was in the forefront of working out the Civilian Public Service program which provided a civilian-administered alternative to military service for historic peace church members.

Orie Miller was asked to manage the operation and financing of the Mennonite camps and “poured himself into this task with characteristic energy and efficiency." comments Paul Erb in his biography.

HIS INVOLVEMENT with peace concerns resulted in his developing many relationships with leaders among the other historic peace churches such as M. R. Ziegler of the Church of the Brethren and Clarence Pickett of American Friends Service Committee.

At the same time he was engaged in an astonishing variety of leadership assignments in the church, Orie Miller was making his living at Miller-Hess Shoe Company in Akron, Pa., a business he enjoyed. Inheriting his share in the business from his first wife's family, Orie teamed with his wife's first cousin, Clarence Hess. Clarence supervised the production and Orie the sales.

Financial success in the shoe business gave Orie enough material resources to enable him to give one-third to one-half his time to church work with no reimbursement. In addition he and his wife donated generously to the financial needs of the church and its institutions.

"HE WAS AN instrument ready at hand for the designs of the Almighty for His people." Paul Erb wrote. "All over the world are persons, many of whom never heard of him, who live in health and happiness because Orie Miller was ready and willing to serve where he was needed.”

For the Mennonite church at large, his spirit lives on in the many institutions he formed and molded, and from which the Mennonite church and those whose lives it touches will continue to benefit for years to come.

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The Mennonite obituary: 1977 Jan 25 p. 60

Birth date: 1892 Jul 7

Orie O. Miller, executive secretary emeritus of the Mennonite Central Committee, was born July 7, 1892, and died Jan. 10 in Lancaster, Pa. Holding sixty-five church-related leadership positions during his life, some for as long as forty-five years, he is particularly noted for his relief and mission work with MCC and Eastern Mennonite Board of Missions and Charities. He was involved in the formation of Mennonite Mental Health Services, Menno Travel Service, Mennonite Mutual Aid, Mennonite Indemnity, Mennonite Economic Development Associates, and Menno Housing. On a broader scope, he served as chairman of the National Service Board For Religious Objectors, as the first chairman of the Schowalter Foundation, and as board member of the American Leprosy Mission. Funeral services were held at the Ephrata (Pa.) Mennonite Church.