Annie Ann Vardaman Miller

Annie Laurie Ann Vardaman Miller Annie Laurie Ann Vardaman Miller died at her home Saturday, August 12, 2006, with family and friends at her side. A Gathering of Friends and Family will be held on Friday, August 18 from 6 pm – 8 pm at the Baylor Hughes Dillard Alumni Center located on University Parks Drive. A Memorial Service will be held at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, August 19, 2006, at First Baptist Church. Ann was born in Dallas, Texas, where she attended North Dallas High School. She finished Baylor University in three years, summa cum laude, majoring in English and serving as the assistant to Dr. A. J. Armstrong. She married her professor, Dr. Robert T. Miller; they moved to Austin for a year and several summers so he could finish his Ph.D. degree. While there, Ann worked in the Texas Legislature and did graduate work at the University of Texas. For almost half a century Ann taught at Baylor University, where she was Professor of English; in 1986 she was designated as Master Teacher of Literature. Twice she and her husband took leave of absences: in the 1960s to Washington, D. C., where Bob served as Administrative Assistant to Congressman W. R. Bob Poage and again in Japan, where Bob was Exchange Professor of Constitutional Law at Seinan Gakuin University. There, Ann was named Visiting Professor of English. For a decade Ann and Bob taught in the Baylor-in-the-British-Isles program at Westminster School within the Westminster Abbey complex in London, where each summer some 150 Baylor students and faculty lived and studied. In addition to her literature courses Ann and two other professors taught for ten years an interdisciplinary seminar in the Medical Humanities. Baylor awarded Professor Miller a Doctorate of Humane Letters in 2003. Ann was designated as an Outstanding Professor by the student body, by Student Congress, and by Baylor University; in addition she was designated an outstanding professor nine times by Mortar Board. She was a published poet and contributed articles both to in-house publications such as The Baylor Line and to journals as prestigious as Studies in Short Fiction. Her library reveals a literary trinity: Dickinson, Chekhov, Yeats. Since her student days Ann has been a member of the First Baptist Church of Waco. She later taught college Sunday school classes and sponsored for fifteen years what was then called Baptist Training Union. An honorary member of Kappa Kappa Gamma, she and her husband sponsored that organization for ten years. The facts are there. But the personality who was Ann Miller can hardly be contained in a list of facts and accomplishments. It can be said that she knew her Bible, loved her church, and adored her husband and children, for she did. But she was in love with life itself—and said so—and loved it as fully as she could until the end, even in the midst of what must have been unbearable pain. And she loved words passionately. Born to rhyme, she wrote about the things dearest to her, mainly the University, things she incorporated into her life and then translated into her poetry. And she loved beauty—the kind “to blow the heart wide open,” as Seamus Heaney says—whether she found it in a Tropicana rose, in “little … acts of kindness and of love,” or above all in people. Neither age nor gender mattered; she built close ties and strong friendships with those she chose to know. She was a pied piper for students, not to a Koppen Cave of destruction but to a higher purpose and the realization of self. But for those who truly knew her, she was that pearl beyond price—a trusted, generous, and loyal friend. She is survived by her two children, Robert T. Miller, Jr. and wife, April F. Miller, of Bedford, Texas, and Laurie Anne Vardaman Miller Smith and husband, Patrick M. Smith, of Fresno, California; brother, Dr. James W. Vardaman, and wife, Elizabeth, of Waco; sisters-in-law Mrs. George W. Truett Patricia Vardaman, of Indian Hills, Colorado; Mrs. Calvin T. Ruth Vardaman of San Antonio, Texas; and Mrs. E. Jerry Dr. Alfalene Vardaman of Starkville, Mississippi. Other survivors include grandchildren Zeus M. Smith of Los Angeles, California; Sol R. Smith and wife, Randi, of Austin, Texas; Miranda Smith and Wilder Smith of Los Angeles; and great granddaughters Solstice and Luna Smith of Austin; sister-in-law, Mrs. J.G. Letha Majors of Denton; nephews George Truett Vardaman, Jr. of Laguna Niguel, California and Lowell Miller of Denton; nieces Mrs. Randy Pamela V. Fincher of Aurora, Colorado; Mrs. James Sandee V. Stone of Austin; Mrs. Dan Debbie V. Hughes of Lake Hills, Texas; Mrs. John Dr. Carol V. Tingle of Jackson, Mississippi; Dr. Celeste Vardaman of Dallas; Mrs. Tim Bridget V. Ashmore of Portland, Oregon; Kirsten V. Turner of Waco; and Mrs. Greg Page V. Cupper of Seattle, Washington; Betty Jane Basham of Hideaway, Texas and Kayana Sullivan of Dallas, Texas and “co-grandmother” Mrs. Marshall Betty Ledbetter Smith of Waco. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to the Ann V. Miller Endowed Scholarship Fund in the George W. Truett Seminary, the Robert T. and Ann V. Miller Endowed Scholarship Fund in Music, or the Baylor University Alumni Association: Baylor University, One Bear Place #97050, Waco, TX 76798. The family invites you to leave a message or memory in our “Memorial Guestbook” at www.wilkirsonhatchbailey.com. Wilkirson-Hatch-Bailey