PARADISE VALLEY - When Ernest Miller took over the Paradise Valley Post Office in 1967 as postmaster, his wife, Emily Miller, became postmaster relief with no pay for the first 20 years. And since Postmaster Kathy Buckingham retired a year ago she has taken over entirely, but still as postmaster relief.
Born in Oregon Canyon, Ore., just a few miles north of McDermitt, Emily lived, until her mid teens, on a homestead of 360 acres, where her family raised sheep.
"We had a one room schoolhouse and all the kids around there rode their horses in to school," Miller, 86, said. She attended the same school through most of her high school years. There were normally eight or fewer students of various ages in attendance. She said that McDermitt had two schools at that time with one on the Idaho side and one on the Nevada side of the state line.
Basque was the only language she knew when she started school. She was just thrown in the classroom and learned English without the help of English as a Second Language class.
"I had the same teacher from the first grade through my freshman year," she said, remembering Lowell Cox and how much effort he put into helping the kids learn. "He fixed a 32 volt light plant in our folks' house and we had electric lights," she said. Miller thinks they were probably the only ones in the neighborhood to have electric lights in the mid 1930s.
She had two sisters, one 16 months her senior and one 16 years her junior; the latter was born in Nevada. No boys in the family meant that the girls helped around the ranch. "Us kids, we did what had to be done," she said. "If the men were all out we did all the chores around the place, milkin' cows and feedin' the pigs and chickens and whatever was on the ranch."
Even after the family moved to Paradise Valley, to what would later become the T5 Ranch, in September 1941 Miller continued to attend her Oregon school for another year and then spent her final year in Nevada graduating from Humboldt County High School in 1944.
About three months after they moved to Paradise war was declared on Japan. After that country attacked Pearl Harbor, area cowboys and farmers became soldiers and sailors. Jim Anderson of Jordan Valley went down with the USS Arizona.
Miller remembers trailing cattle from Paradise to Winnemucca over a three day period and she rode on the last trail ride in 1944.
One thing she notices that is quite different today than in the past is when people used to come to work on the ranch the rancher fed them, but nowadays everyone brings their lunch.
"It's a big change on that score," she said. "The neighborliness isn't as close as it was, I don't think.
"I know that one time there was a fire in (the valley) here. I was running a mowing machine with horses. My sister was running a rake with horses," she said. All the men were out battling the fire.
Her mom and grandmother took care of everyone's laundry on the ranch. Women wore dresses all the time, but Miller and her sister were able to wear Levis because they were horseback a good deal of the time.
"They (mom and grandma) worked hard until noon, took a bath and put on clean clothes in the afternoon," she said.
It wasn't long after graduating high school, however, that Dec. 25, 1944, she became the bride of Ernest Miller changing her name from Zatica to Miller. That union lasted just 11 days short of 58 years when he died after a lengthy battle with cancer.
"Give more than take," she said, is what it takes to keep a marriage together that many years. "You have to work. You have to compromise and you have to be able to communicate." That union produced daughters Frankie Peterson and Mary Ann Boner. Boner died of leukemia a few years ago.
Ranching wasn't destined to be the Miller's primary source of income and just a year after they married they purchased the Case Mercantile in Paradise Valley changing the name to Paradise Mercantile. The room that became a bar before they sold it was a storage room when they bought it.
With both the bar and grocery store there was little off time and the two of them were wearing out so they decided to sell and Ernest applied for the position of postmaster, which he held until 1986.
Miller doesn't feel that computers are her friends and the one in the Post Office the least friendly. "The computer don't like me and I don't like it," she said.
Technology is the biggest change she has seen at the Post Office as everything else is about the same as in the past, except, of course, postage. When she was in high school first class postage was 3 cents and it was 5 cents when the Millers took over the Post Office. Now postage runs 46 cents.
Besides taking care of the Post Office six days a week she works in her yard, raises lambs and butchers them for relatives for Christmas gifts. Keeping busy she feels has helped keep her in good shape and her mind active.
"I still mow my own yard," she said. Albeit she does it with a riding lawn mower, but she not only mows hers, but also her sister Gloria (Chickie) Gastanaga's next door and another town lot. "Mowin' isn't hard 'cause you have a tractor, but trimmin' takes a little time." Her older sister Lillian Lequerica died a few years ago.
Miller also enjoys reading and particularly appreciates shorter stories, and doing "Find a Word" puzzles. She has four grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.
[[In-content Ad]]
