Mrs. Margaret Hale Miller

Margaret Hale Miller passed away peacefully on Friday, December 18, 2015 at Hope Mills Retirement Center, where she had lived since 2010. She was 101.

Margaret was born in Richmond County, North Carolina on November 22, 1914, the youngest of four daughters. Both of her parents died by the time she was four and she grew up with her sisters at the Mills Home, a Baptist orphanage in Thomasville, North Carolina.

She was valedictorian of her high school class at the orphanage, and was able to attend Mars Hill College, a Baptist college that then only offered a two-year degree, because of the generosity of a private benefactor. She lettered in debate. “I chose debate,” she told The Fayetteville Observer’s Kim Hasty in 2009, “because I couldn’t do anything athletic.”

The debate topic was the relative power of the President and of Congress during the New Deal and the crisis of the Great Depression. She remained interested in public affairs throughout her lifetime.

She graduated from Mars Hill but was unable to continue her education because of the death of her benefactor.

Margaret moved to Fayetteville, where one of her sisters lived, to find employment. She found employment and Nathan David Miller, who was also the valedictorian of his high school class and also had begun but could not afford to finish college. The two children of the Depression married and purchased a home on Ellington Street in Fayetteville in 1938, where she lived until she entered Hope Mills Retirement Center.

Nathan and Margaret had three children. Nathan worked at the Post Office and was manager of the Haymount Branch at the time of his death in 1965. Margaret worked as a bookkeeper for the Fayetteville City Schools until the merger with the Cumberland County Schools in 1985 when she was 71.

She found a calling in retirement helping her youngest son’s campaigns for the North Carolina legislature and Congress. Margaret called tens of thousands of voters, especially voters over the age of 65, to urge support for her son Brad. Brad was elected to four terms in the legislature and five terms in Congress.

She called from nine in the morning until nine at night with brief breaks so she would not disturb voters’ lunch or dinner. The Raleigh News and Observer called her the “secret weapon” in Brad’s first campaign for the legislature. She was never a secret after that.

She is survived by her daughter, Nancy Martin Miller of Fayetteville; her son Jeffrey David Miller and his wife Joan Walker Miller of Fayetteville; her son Ralph Bradley Miller of Raleigh; four grandchildren, Kenneth Martin, Suzie Huening, Julie Tew and John M. Tew; and seven great-grandchildren.

The funeral will be at 11:00 on Wednesday at Highland Presbyterian Church, where Margaret was an active member of the congregation for more than 70 years. The family will meet friends and relatives in the fellowship hall following the service.

The family established the Margaret Miller Endowed Scholarship at Mars Hill University last year to celebrate her 100th birthday. The scholarship is for children raised at orphanages.

The family welcomes contributions to the scholarship in lieu of flowers:

Please make checks to: Mars Hill University (memo line: Margaret Miller Endowed Scholarship)

Mailing address: Mars Hill University (attn.: Tim McClain), PO Box 6792, Mars Hill NC  28754.

The family would like to thank the staff at Hope Mills Retirement Home for their care and kindness during Margaret’s time there.

Services are entrusted to Sullivan’s Highland Funeral Service & Crematory.