HAPPY 80TH
"I have always been blessed in my daughters," said Joann Miller reflecting on the splendid party given for her 80th birthday by daughters Maria Van Horn and Adrienne Miller (Adrienne is that outstandingly good-looking Alexandria detective who received A medal for heroism because she talked a suspect into dropping a gun instead of firing it.)
Maria, also good-looking, is the one born on July 4th who assumed, as a small child living In Rome, that the ambassador always declared a holiday on July 4 so her father could stay home with her on her birthday .
Son Michael was unable to be present because he was in Montana looking after the ranch on which he now lives
A LIFETIME’S MEMORIES
One of the guests was Sally Hardy, whose late husband was Ed Miller’s pilot in
WWII when he was in the Air Force
Vera Willis was there with husband Rance, remembering Joann’s days as AAUW
President. (I shall never cease to be grateful to Joann for the conversation club she organized with diplomat’s wives so they could practice speaking English– we mostly traded recipes, and one Palestinian lady taught me how to handle phyllo dough to make baklava.)
DEMOCRATS GALORE
Joann’s many years as chairman of the Alexandria Democratic Committee were
remembered by Sen. Patsy Ticer, Vive-mayor Del Pepper and husband F.J., Marian Van Landingham, Patti Schmid, Jackie Urow, and Donna and Mel Bergheim.
‘She gave me my first professional job right after I graduated from Goucher,"ssaid
Rachel Gibson Hunt, vice-president of Educational Services Inc., "running the Democratic headquarters in 1980. We were both heartbroken when Jimmy Carter. lost," Norma Gattsk and Karen Leibach, just baack from an Alaskan cruise,were there,
As were Paula and Jack Sullivan , Kit Leider, and Betty Jo and Howard Middleton.
Others in the large crowd were Doris and Don Mela, Ellen Pickering, Dorothy and
Rick Miller,, Mike Curry,Dorothy Wheeler, Anne Martone, and Cassie and Shawn
McLaughlin.
Lois Kelso Hunt