Old Missoula

Mr. and Mrs. George Miller Were Wed Fifty Years Ago in Missoula Church [1899]

A pioneer Missoula couple, Mr. and Mrs. George Miller, celebrated their golden wedding anniversary on Wednesday by having their friends come to an open house at their home at 440 Connell avenue.

The evening before the anniversary Mr. and Mrs. Miller were feted by their children at a family dinner in the Mayfair room of the Hotel Florence. The appropriate motif of gold was used throughout in the decorations.

Family members attending were Mr. and Mrs. J. Byron Miller, Los Angeles; Mr. and Mrs. Harry D. Eslick and son, Dean, Auburn, Cal.; Commander Edwin S. Miller, USN, Newport, R. I.; Mr. and Mrs. Philip P. Miller, San Francisco; Mr. and Mrs. Emerson Miller, Missoula; Minnie Miller, a sister-in-law of Long Beach, Cal; Angus L. Doney, Missoula, and Mary Pannebaker, a niece, of Wallace, Idaho, Mr. and Mrs. Roy Oakley Miller, Los Angeles, were unable to attend because of illness in the family. . .

Another point of interest during the reception was when Mrs. T. A. Price, who had played the entrance wedding march in the old Methodist church when the Millers were married at 8 o’clock in the evening in 1899, repeated the selection at the same time Wednesday evening.

Mr. Miller arrived in Missoula in 1897. Mrs. Miller, formerly Miss Louise Basler, arrived in Missoula in 1896. Before her marriage, Mrs. Miller was teaching in a log cabin school in Frenchtown.

All of their seven children were born and reared in Missoula and attended local schools.

Roy Oakley, the eldest, is a lieutenant in the Los Angeles police department and lives with his wife and family in the San Fernando valley. Bernice Elizabeth Doney (nee Miller) was organist at the First Methodist church before she died in 1940.

J. Byron, another son, is an inspector of detectives in the Los Angeles police department and recently completed 20 years of service there. Grace Louise Eslick (nee Miller) lives in Auburn, Cal., with her husband and family.

Another son, Edwin S., is a commander in the navy, stationed at the United States Naval War college, Newport, R. I., as a member of the staff and faculty. Philip Preston is a position analyst with the Bank of America in San Francisco.

Emerson Miller is director of the Missoula grade school bands.

The above information is from an article that appeared in The Daily Missoulian on June 5, 1949.

For an interesting paper about Missoula’s early school music bands see Emerson Miller’a Masters Thesis at the following link:

https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/7713/