Maretta C. Miller

Maretta Miller, a longtime resident of Waukegan and Libertyville, died at the Sheridan at Green Oaks assisted living facility in Lake Bluff on Sunday. She was 98. She was born in a small farming town called Shelbina in northeastern Missouri in 1924. She was the second child of Clarence and Viola Collier, and the only girl in a family with four children. Her father was a rural route mailman who rose before dawn to deliver the mail to the farmers on his route. She graduated from the University of Missouri at Columbia, where she worked in the University Library, and where she eventually met her future husband, Jonathan P. Miller, who had just returned from serving as a navigator in the Army Air Corps in Europe during World War II. They became engaged shortly after they met, and once they were married and had both finished school, they moved to Waukegan, IL, where he started work at Abbott Laboratories and she started work as a secretary for the law firm in Waukegan that would eventually become known as Diver, Grach, Quade & Masini. She was a trusted and loyal employee, eventually becoming the office manager, and she stayed with the firm until her retirement almost 50 years later. She was an active member of the P.E.O. Sisterhood, an international women’s organization with a primary focus on providing educational opportunities for female students worldwide, and she served for over 50 years. She was also active in the First Baptist Church in Waukegan, where she taught Sunday school; the Junior Women’s League of Waukegan; the Family Service Agency, where she served as Treasurer; and she served on the board of United Way of Lake County. She was a gifted bridge player, with an almost uncanny ability to remember what cards had been played, and she participated in several bridge clubs, where she and her husband (sometimes known as “J.P.” or “Jeep”) developed many lifelong friends. Maretta and J.P. moved to Libertyville in 1985, where they became active members of the First Presbyterian Church of Libertyville, and where she served on the Board of Deacons. She began to lose her sight to macular degeneration in the 1990s, and in 2004 her loving husband of over 50 years died of a heart attack. In spite of her visual impairment, she was determined to continue living alone in her home in Libertyville, which would not have been possible without Mark and his wife Maureen, and without the generous help of the many friends she had accumulated over a lifetime. She fell and broke her hip in 2019, forcing a move into assisted living, and in December of 2021 she contracted Covid-19, which hastened her decline. She is survived by her sons David and Mark, Mark’s wife Maureen; and by Mark and Maureen’s sons Jonathan (and by Jonathan’s wife Ariel and their two children, Jack and Lukas) and Sean (and by Sean’s wife Amanda and their three children, Collier “C.J.,” Merritt, and Marigold). She was preceded in death by her beloved husband Jonathan “J.P.”; by her brothers Bob, Chuck, and Sam; and by David’s wife Virginia “Ginny.” In lieu of flowers, please consider a charitable donation in her memory to either P.E.O. Chapter NG, 14292 West Kirkwall Ct., Libertyville, IL 60048, or The First Presbyterian Church, 219 Maple Ave., Libertyville, IL 60048 A visitation will begin at 10 AM, followed by a funeral service at 11 AM, on Saturday, July 30, 2022 at the First Presbyterian Church in Libertyville, located at 219 Maple Avenue. To view virtually, a livestream is available on church website, https://www.youtube.com/c/FirstPresbyterianChurchofLibertyville Arrangements by Burnett-Dane Funeral Home in Libertyville. For more information, please call 847.362.3009 or share a memory at www.burnettdane.com Click link below for livestreaming: https://youtu.be/BouDaNz2KNo

Maretta C. Miller

May 15, 1924 - July 24, 2022