“After about 85 years of age, there should be no excuse for anyone having an estate. . . . I believe
that time spent accumulating wealth beyond the family’s year-to-year needs also wastes time.”
In 1970, Orie Miller turned seventy-eight. He had seven more years of life
left, and the last five were complicated by Parkinson’s disease. He remained
active as long as he could, managing various family partnerships,
developing the Wolf farms on the outskirts of Akron that had been inherited
by Elta Wolf Miller, traveling for MEDA, vacationing in Jamaica, and
attending MCC and EMM executive committee meetings—which, he told
a friend in India, occupied twenty-seven days a year.
Financial Decisions
Akron’s population was growing, causing a housing shortage. Seeing an
opportunity, Orie and his sons decided to develop two farms that were
part of Elta Wolf Miller’s estate. The farms, of sixty-seven and seventy-nine
acres, respectively, were on the western outskirts of Akron, one up
the hill from the railroad and one below the tracks. The farms had been
part of a larger Wolf tract of thirteen hundred acres.6 On December 31,
1958, the property was transferred to the five Miller children.7
The Move to Landis Homes
Orie soon needed a retreat of a different kind. On April 1, 1972, Orie and
Elta moved to a cottage at Landis Homes Retirement Community in rural
Lititz, Pennsylvania. Somewhere on his around-the-world tour for MEDA
in February and March 1969, Orie had a “slight stroke” that left him
with a temporary speech impediment. In 1970, he returned from another
eight-week, around-the-world MEDA mission feeling more tired than
usual. Elta also noticed his “lips twitching” and urged him to see a doctor.
Dr. William G. Ridgway of Akron thought it must have been another
slight stroke and referred him to a specialist.
“The Great Decline in the Imperishable Orie Miller”
During a March 1975 visit from Ira J. Buckwalter, EMM treasurer, Orie
told him that he had been “too weak” to attend the recent executive committee
meeting but was looking for the minutes. He thanked Buckwalter
for visiting. He was grateful also for the visits of Norman Shenk, Nathan
Hege, Mahlon Hess, and Raymond Charles. He assured Buckwalter that
he was “improving,” but would not be able to attend annual meetings.
354 My Calling to Fulfill 12: Acc umulating Years: 1970–1977 355
Landis Homes was a “wonderful institution,” and the staff members were
“the finest folks.”
That same month, Dr. William Ridgway wrote Orie a blunt letter of
advice about the upcoming MCC executive committee meetings Orie
wanted to attend: “We have always leveled with each other and have not
ducked a straight question, and there is no reason to begin now, so here
it is”:
Until now, I have advised that you be active . . . [for] we have agreed that it
is better to wear out than rust out. My feelings are unchanged and yet, I am
going to advise against your planning to attend the coming conference. You
are less than totally aware of your effect on others. Your physical self has
made such a change that those attending the conference would be appalled
at the great decline in the imperishable Orie Miller. The impact would be
such that there would be more anguish than you can imagine [and] . . . it
would detract from the business at hand.
Dying According to Plan
Orie expected to live until age eighty-five. He had no plans beyond that
age. By then, his assets were to be given away. Indeed, by the end, “he
didn’t have much left,” said Ed Miller, Orie’s grandson and legal counsel.
On a “blustery winter evening,” on January 10, 1977, Orie passed
from this world into the next. After spending most of his final days in a
coma, he slipped away at six forty-five that evening. He was eighty-four,
six months short of eighty-five. He even died according to plan!
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