Dr. Paul Miller, 93, went home to be with his Lord and Savior on January 3, 2019. He was born in Elkland, Missouri, on February 11, 1925, to the late John William and Alvaretta Miller, and is preceded in death by his wife June and their infant twin sons Michael and Marshall.
Paul was reared on a small family farm in southern Missouri and was the eldest of seven children. At the age of fourteen, he and his brother Pruitt, one year younger, had to leave school for a year to run the farm while their father was hospitalized. It was a difficult year, but they, along with the help of their loving mother, were able to put food on the table, care for the fields and livestock, and put up stores for the coming winter.
Immediately upon graduation from high school in 1944, Paul enlisted in the Marines at the height of World War II. He served with the 1st Marine Division, 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, and was later assigned to the Pioneer Battalion. In the fall of 1944, his regiment was shipped out to the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific and stationed on the island of Pavuvu for further training, which included an intense, month-long pre-invasion training stint on Guadalcanal.
On Easter Sunday, April 1, 1945, Paul was among the tens of thousands of Allied troops who stormed the beaches of Okinawa in the largest amphibious campaign of the Pacific theater. With the sounds of Irving Berlin's "Easter Parade" blaring from many of the troop transports' intercoms, the 1st Marine Division disembarked at Hagushi beach, and the bloody eighty-two-day battle for the island began.
Toward the end of the battle, Paul was burned over 35% of his body and spent the next nine months in three different hospitals, eventually being shipped to Great Lakes Naval Hospital in Chicago. It was there that he met June Sherwood, a city girl from Milwaukee who worked as a typist at the hospital. It wasn't long before the classic country-boy-meets-sophisticated-city-girl romance blossomed, resulting in sixty-one blissful years of marriage, six children, and many more wonderful moments than could ever be counted.
Knowing that the Lord had called him to be a minister of the Gospel, Paul earned undergraduate degrees from Southwest Baptist College in Bolivar, Missouri, and Oklahoma Baptist University in Shawnee. He later went on to obtain Master of Divinity and Master of Theology degrees, as well as a Doctor of Ministry from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas.
Paul was called to minister in several churches, including the First Baptist Church of Corbett, Oklahoma; Mambrino Baptist Church near Granbury, Texas; and Eureka Baptist Church in Weatherford, Texas. In 1958, he was called as pastor of First Baptist Church of White Settlement, Texas, where he and June served faithfully for more than thirty-eight years. Preaching the Gospel of Christ was Paul's passion, and caring for the people of his churches and surrounding communities with the heart of a servant was a privilege that he cherished.
Paul was an avid hunter, fisherman, carpenter, artist, and reader. Many in the family enjoy hanging his oil paintings in their homes. For the last several years of his life, he especially enjoyed creating pens on his lathe and giving them to family and friends as gifts to commemorate special occasions. As a product of the Great Depression, he taught himself how to make or repair just about anything.
Paul is survived by four children: James and his wife Janith; Christine and her husband Wesley Hill; David and his wife Elaine; and Phillip and his wife Katy. Paul was also blessed to have ten grandchildren and eighteen great-grandchildren with two more on the way. He is also survived by his brothers John and Joe Miller, and his sister Zeta Sue Davies.
The family will miss our beloved father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and brother. We have never known a world without him in it. But we are comforted in the knowledge that he is more alive now than he ever was on Earth, and we will see him again. We know that he was lovingly received by his Heavenly Father, and he heard the reassuring words, "Welcome home, thou good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of thy salvation."
Funeral services will be at 11:00 a.m. Tuesday, January 8, 2019, at the Mission Chapel Baptist Church in Elkland, Missouri, with his brother, Rev. John Miller officiating. Burial will follow in the Mission Chapel Cemetery. Visitation will be from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. on Sunday, January 6, 2018, at White Settlement First Baptist Church in White Settlement, Texas.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to Hendrick Home for Children, PO Box 5195, Abilene, Texas, 79608.