a war correspondent
The Photos are: Uncle Bill and Aunt Anna and My Mom and Dad in 1978
Dominic and Jamie and very pregnant me (1 day before giving birth)and in the back
Uncle Bill and Uncle Kenneth Miller
The Nieman Fellows from the Class of 1941, Uncle Bill is in the 2nd row and he is
on the extreme left.
I would like to introduce my Uncle "Bill" Miller . (July 04, 1912-March 26, 1989) Bill Miller was named after his dad, my grandfather ,William J. Miller.
(and I was named after my grandmother Sallie Rogers Miller)
Uncle Bill was orphaned at the age of 6 by the great flu epidemic of 1918, and he was raised by one of his older siblings.My Uncle Roy, who was 24 and married at the time that my grandparents died .Some of the older boys and girls had the advantage of college, but Uncle Bill and the younger siblings, (including my Dad) were expected to find a job as soon as they graduated from High School.
After graduating from Lee Edwards High School in Asheville, NC in 1930, Uncle Bill moved to Cleveland, Ohio to live with his brother Locke and to find work. He sort of lanquished about the house for a few days and then my Aunt Christine took him down to the Cleveland Press with an article or two that he had written for his High School paper, and asked the editor to please give him a job.
He started his journalistic career as a "copy boy" for the Cleveland Press when he was 17 and fresh out of high school.
He eventually became a reporter for the Cleveland Press covering "The Torso Murders" of the 1930's. He was a War Correspondent during WW2 and then held various staff positions with Time Magazine, Newsweek Magazine and Life Magazine, He won a fellowship to Harvard, and in later life took a job with a University in Cincinatti, Ohio, and did freelance writing . He was the English Language Consultant for the first Edition of The American Heritage Dictionary. All this from a Western North Carolina boy, who was named after my grandfather. Uncle Bill lived in Chappaqua NY during his NY days (and my cousins still own the house). He had a summer home in Truro Massachussetts, (which they also still own), and a winter home in Bradenton Florida.
Uncle Bill was listed in the 50's, 60's, and 70's editions of Who's Who in America. He and his wife Anna raised 8 children, but UB often bought Christmas presents for my siblings and me.
This is an article I found on the web;
"I Am a Jelly-Filled Doughnut"
By WILLIAM J. MILLER; WILLIAM J. MILLER WAS CHIEF EDITORIAL WRITER FOR THE NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE FROM 1957 TO 1959.
Published: April 30, 1988
LEAD: Putting words into a President's mouth, or attributing fabricated quotes, as former White House spokesman Larry Speakes admitted he did for President Reagan, may on occasion be preferable to having a President utter clever words dreamed up by his speech writers.
Putting words into a President's mouth, or attributing fabricated quotes, as former White House spokesman Larry Speakes admitted he did for President Reagan, may on occasion be preferable to having a President utter clever words dreamed up by his speech writers.
It's worth recalling, again, President John F. Kennedy's use of a German phrase while standing before the Berlin Wall. It would be great, his wordsmiths thought, for him to declare himself a symbolic citizen of Berlin. Hence, ''Ich bin ein Berliner.''
What they did not know, but could easily have found out, was that such citizens never refer to themselves as ''Berliners.'' They reserve that term for a favorite confection often munched at breakfast. So, while they understood and appreciated the sentiments behind the President's impassioned declaration, the residents tittered among themselves when he exclaimed, literally, ''I am a jelly-filled doughnut.''Ronald Reagan is not the first President to be quoted saying words he never said. In the case of Mr. Speakes, the ventriloquist act would have gone undiscovered but for Mr. Speakes's own admission.
A well intentioned imposture of President Cleveland by Henry T. Thurber, secretary to the President, was exposed in an embarrassing, if amusing, way. Henry Cabot Lodge, as a cub reporter in Washington for The New York Herald Tribune in the late 1920's, picked up the story from Robert Lincoln O'Brien, who had been a junior aide in the Cleveland White House. Mr. Lodge tells the story in his book ''The Storm Has Many Eyes.''
President Cleveland had slipped off for a hunting and fishing trip that was undisclosed, because in those days such pursuits were considered undignified for a President. In his absence came news of the death of Russia's Czar Alexander 3d, and a correspondent for Reuters came to the White House seeking Mr. Cleveland's reaction.
Mr. Lodge relates the story told to him by Mr. O'Brien: ''Secretary Thurber, who had the exquisite manners of a very polite undertaker, not wanting to reveal the President's absence, vanished into the President's office, walked three times around the desk, came out to where the journalist was standing, his eyes wet, his hands shaking, and said, 'The President feels (not the President ''says'') that he is inexpressibly shocked and grieved by the sad event of which you have just informed him. It was not, perhaps, altogether unexpected, but it was nonetheless prostrating on that account. He thanks you for the thoughtful attention. He would make his acknowledgment in person, but cannot trust himself in this, the first blush of his grief, to see or speak to anyone.' ''
''This was all duly written down,'' according to Mr. Lodge, and Mr. O'Brien put it on the wire.
''Act II of this drama occurs in the mountains of North Carolina. The reporter from the Raleigh bureau of the Associated Press is tramping along the edge of a stream when suddenly he sees an elderly and rather corpulent man in an old raincoat and hat smoking a pipe and holding a fishing rod . . . beside him is a rifle and some dead squirrels. The journalist approaches and asks if this is President Cleveland. After receiving an affirmative answer, the young reporter says, 'Mr. President, I am Hawkins of the . . . Associated Press and I wanted to tell you that Czar Alexander of Russia has just died and ask you if you have any comment.'
''The President said, 'Why, no, I have nothing to say. I didn't know him. I don't believe in public officials making comments about all sorts of situations that they know nothing about.' This story was also put on the wire.
''Act III that night was in the city room of The New York Herald Tribune, where the managing editor is making up the paper. Before him is the dispatch from Washington expressing the President's 'prostration' and the one from Raleigh expressing his indifference. The editor puts the two side by side in parallel columns, writes this opening paragraph, 'The grief of President Cleveland over the death of Czar Alexander III of Russia was seen to be diminishing tonight.' Over it he put this headline, 'Gradually Assuaging.' ''
Putting words into a President's mouth, or attributing fabricated quotes, as former White House spokesman Larry Speakes admitted he did for President Reagan, may on occasion be preferable to having a President utter clever words dreamed up by his speech writers.
It's worth recalling, again, President John F. Kennedy's use of a German phrase while standing before the Berlin Wall. It would be great, his wordsmiths thought, for him to declare himself a symbolic citizen of Berlin. Hence, ''Ich bin ein Berliner.''
What they did not know, but could easily have found out, was that such citizens never refer to themselves as ''Berliners.'' They reserve that term for a favorite confection often munched at breakfast. So, while they understood and appreciated the sentiments behind the President's impassioned declaration, the residents tittered among themselves when he exclaimed, literally, ''I am a jelly-filled doughnut.''Ronald Reagan is not the first President to be quoted saying words he never said. In the case of Mr. Speakes, the ventriloquist act would have gone undiscovered but for Mr. Speakes's own admission.
A well intentioned imposture of President Cleveland by Henry T. Thurber, secretary to the President, was exposed in an embarrassing, if amusing, way. Henry Cabot Lodge, as a cub reporter in Washington for The New York Herald Tribune in the late 1920's, picked up the story from Robert Lincoln O'Brien, who had been a junior aide in the Cleveland White House. Mr. Lodge tells the story in his book ''The Storm Has Many Eyes.''
President Cleveland had slipped off for a hunting and fishing trip that was undisclosed, because in those days such pursuits were considered undignified for a President. In his absence came news of the death of Russia's Czar Alexander 3d, and a correspondent for Reuters came to the White House seeking Mr. Cleveland's reaction.
Mr. Lodge relates the story told to him by Mr. O'Brien: ''Secretary Thurber, who had the exquisite manners of a very polite undertaker, not wanting to reveal the President's absence, vanished into the President's office, walked three times around the desk, came out to where the journalist was standing, his eyes wet, his hands shaking, and said, 'The President feels (not the President ''says'') that he is inexpressibly shocked and grieved by the sad event of which you have just informed him. It was not, perhaps, altogether unexpected, but it was nonetheless prostrating on that account. He thanks you for the thoughtful attention. He would make his acknowledgment in person, but cannot trust himself in this, the first blush of his grief, to see or speak to anyone.' ''
''This was all duly written down,'' according to Mr. Lodge, and Mr. O'Brien put it on the wire.
''Act II of this drama occurs in the mountains of North Carolina. The reporter from the Raleigh bureau of the Associated Press is tramping along the edge of a stream when suddenly he sees an elderly and rather corpulent man in an old raincoat and hat smoking a pipe and holding a fishing rod . . . beside him is a rifle and some dead squirrels. The journalist approaches and asks if this is President Cleveland. After receiving an affirmative answer, the young reporter says, 'Mr. President, I am Hawkins of the . . . Associated Press and I wanted to tell you that Czar Alexander of Russia has just died and ask you if you have any comment.'
''The President said, 'Why, no, I have nothing to say. I didn't know him. I don't believe in public officials making comments about all sorts of situations that they know nothing about.' This story was also put on the wire.
''Act III that night was in the city room of The New York Herald Tribune, where the managing editor is making up the paper. Before him is the dispatch from Washington expressing the President's 'prostration' and the one from Raleigh expressing his indifference. The editor puts the two side by side in parallel columns, writes this opening paragraph, 'The grief of President Cleveland over the death of Czar Alexander III of Russia was seen to be diminishing tonight.' Over it he put this headline, 'Gradually Assuaging.' ''
I found an article enumerating the fifteen Nieman
journalists who won the awards in 1940 .Uncle Bill was the last one listed.
and last but not least the class of 41 who won the prestigious Nieman Awards for Journalism. Uncle Bill is in the second row on the right.
