Miller, Ernest E. (1894-1975)

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 1975 Jan 16 p. 3

Birth date: 1894

text of obituary:

Long-Time Educator, Missionary

Goshen College President Emeritus Called by Death

GOSHEN, IND. — Dr. Ernest E. Miller, 81, president emeritus of Goshen College and a former missionary to India, died early Saturday, Jan. 11, at Goshen Hospital where he had been admitted the previous day. He had not been ill prior to that.

Funeral services were conducted at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday at the Goshen College Mennonite Church with Rev. John Mosemann, the pastor, and Dr. J. Lawrence Burkholder, president of Goshen College, officiating. Burial was in the Prairie Street Cemetery, Elkhart.

Born at Middlebury to Rev. and Mrs. D. D. Miller, Dr. Miller was a 1917 graduate of Goshen College. He then attended the College of Missions in Indianapolis and the Biblical Seminary in New York. He earned the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees at New York University, and in 1952 was awarded an honorary doctor of divinity degree by Bethel College (Kansas).

BETWEEN 1918 and 1920 he served for 18 months as a relief worker in the Middle East under the American Committee for Relief in the Near East. Earlier he had served for a time as principal of Shipshewana High School and then as school superintendent there.

Dr. Miller and his wife, the former Ruth Blosser of New Stark, Ohio, went to India missionaries under the Mennonite Board of Missions in 1921 and continued on that field until 1937. Dr. Miller served as principal of both the mission high school and the mission academy at Dhamtari, C. P.

Returning to the U.S., Dr. Miller joined the faculty of Goshen College in 1939 and continued with the college until 1962. He was president from 1940 to 1954, during which the college was accredited by both the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education and the North Central Association. He was also director of personnel and taught courses in education.

DURING his career as an educator Dr. Miller served as chairman of the Mid-India Christian Education Council, was a member of Phi Delta Kappa, the American Personnel Assn. and the American Association of School Administrators. In 1956-57 and again in 1962-63 he returned to India to serve as principal of Woodstock School.

Surviving in addition to Mrs. Miller of Oak Court at Greencroft are a daughter, Mrs. Weyburn (Thelma) Groff, now in Cambridge, England; one son, Dr. Donald G. Miller of Elkhart; eight grandchildren; three brothers, Orie O. of Akron, Pa., Wilbur of Columbus, O., and Samuel of Kouts, Ind.; and four sisters, Mrs. B. F. Schertz of Flanagan, Ill., Mrs. Clara Augsburger of Telford, Pa., Mrs. C. Oesch of Middlebury, and Mrs. William Jennings of Columbus, O.

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Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 1975 Feb 6 p. 9

text of obituary:

GOSHEN, INDIANA January 29, 1975

. . .

Mrs. Weyburn (Thelma) Groff, who arrived Jan. 12 from Cambridge, England due to the death of her father, Dr. Ernest E. Miller, remained for a three-week stay with her mother at Oak Court, Greencroft. Prof. and Mrs. Groff, former Goshen residents, moved to England in December to make their home their for a year. Prof. Groff, who is on sabbatical leave from the Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminaries in Elkhart, is enrolled in a visiting scholar program at Cambridge University.

Relatives from outside the Goshen area who were here to attend the funeral services for Dr. Ernest E. Miller on Jan. 14 included Mr. and Mrs. Wilbur Miller and Dr. and Mrs. William Jennings of Columbus, Ohio; Mrs. Ben F. Shertz [sic Schertz] of Flanagan, Ill.; Glen Blosser and Mr. and Mrs. Paul Blosser of Forest, Ohio; Robert Blosser of Findlay, Ohio; Mr. and Mrs. Ed Shumacher of Cleveland, Ohio; Mr. and Mrs. Donald Wittrig of Kalamazoo, Mich.; Dale Miller of Broomfield, Colo., a University of Colorado student; Mr. and Mrs. Ron Hess and Linda Miller of Bloomington, students at Indiana University; and Rev. and Mrs. Samuel Miller of Kouts.

— Ruth E. Bender