Katherine Whiting Miller
1925 – 2009
CONCORD, N.H. — Katherine Whiting Miller, 84, died peacefully on Sunday, June 28.
Kay was born on May 25, 1925, in Auburn. She was the oldest of the six children of Howard and Katherine (Hetzel) Whiting and grew up in the depression surrounded by a large and close family. She helped her mother with her siblings when they were young, and when she was older she worked with her parents and her brothers and sisters in the family florist business. Her younger brother Henry only recently retired and closed “Whiting’s Greenhouses” on Summer Street in Auburn, after 85 years of business. Her love of gardening was evident everywhere she lived, and her yard was always filled with marvelous gardens and her home with countless plants and beautiful flowers.
Growing up, she was an active member of the Grace Lutheran Church, where she taught Sunday school and sang in the choir. She graduated from Edward Little High School in Auburn in 1943. After finishing high school, she worked at the First Auburn Trust Co., where she met Robert Miller of Auburn upon his return from service with the Navy during World War II. Bob and Kay were married on July 25, 1948, and were in their 60th year of marriage at the time of Bob’s death in 2007.
She left her work at the bank in 1949 when her oldest child was born. She devoted the rest of her life to raising her family and to many charitable and church related causes. She was happiest when she was caring for others; she was an attentive wife, a nurturing mother and a loving aunt, assisting her siblings with the care of her many nieces and nephews.
Bob’s job took the family from Maine to upstate New York, and then to Concord in 1970. They lived in Bow for more than 35 years. For more than 50 years, they spent as much time as they could with their family at their camp on Mooselookmeguntic Lake in the Rangeley Lakes region of Maine. After Bob died, she moved to Heritage Heights in Concord, where she joined many wonderful friends and made many more.
She volunteered in the classroom, with the Parent Teachers’ Organization and the Booster Club for many years in the Bow School District and served for several years as the disbursing treasurer of the Concord Female Charitable Society. She worked tirelessly in too many ways to list at the Wesley Methodist Church in Concord, where she served on the board of directors of the United Methodist Women.
In May of this year, she was honored as a charter member of the Bow Housewives Bowling League, having been in the league since its inception in 1979. She loved to play cards and belonged to several local Bridge groups though out the years, and she could always be enticed to play a game of Scrabble. She was also a talented seamstress and knitter.
She will be missed by her family, including her son, James and his wife, Margaret, of Mercer Island, Wash.; her son, William of Newfane, Vt.; her daughter, Barbara Audet and her husband, Peter of Bow, N.H.; grandchildren, Marissa and Colton Miller of Mercer Island, Wash.; her two brothers, Henry Whiting of Auburn and Howard Whiting of Turner and Columbus, S.C.; and many nieces and nephews and their children in her large extended family.
She was predeceased by her beloved husband, Robert Miller; and her three sisters, Gertrude Perkins, Thelma Woodward and Iris Hall.
She will also be greatly missed by the legions of friends she cultivated wherever she lived.
MILLER — Katherine W., 84, died June 28. Memorial services will be held Friday, July 10, at noon at Wesley United Methodist Church in Concord. Graveside services will be held at a later date beside Grace Lutheran Church at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Auburn. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to either Wesley United Methodist Church Endowment, 79 Clinton St., Concord, NH 03301, or Grace Lutheran Church Memorial Fund, 757 Summer St., Auburn ME 04210. The Bennett Funeral Home of Concord is in charge of the arrangements.

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