Her Village Life

In Memory of Lillie Miller, 103

By Dan and David Miller

Greenwich Village lost one of its longest-lived community members when Lillie Miller recently passed away at the age of 103.  Lillie and her husband Joseph Miller were married in 1945 in their home at 2 West 16th St., moved to East 9th St. around 1954 and then moved to a brownstone on West 9th St. in 1963, where Lillie lived until her death on January 6, 2025.

The Early Days
Lillie was the daughter of Jewish immigrants from Russia/Poland and grew up in the poverty of the Lower East Side.  She was one of six children, one of whom died before Lillie was born and another who died of pneumonia at home when Lillie was one and a half.  There was no money to consider doctors, hospitals or funerals, and her sister was buried in a Potter’s Field.  Her mother was the center of the family. Her father was a house painter by trade but was unable to work after his leg was amputated due to gangrene.  The amputation was performed by the local pharmacist in the home, with a towel to bite on but without anesthesia other than alcohol to numb the pain.  

Lillie and her family lived in a two-room tenement on Stanton Street (between Eldridge and Forsyth Streets) and in her words they were “the poorest of the poor.”  She and her three sisters slept in one bed with their mother, “lying like sardines,” head to toe, while her brother and father slept on a cot in the kitchen.  With little to eat, her mother kept them alive on two-day-old bread.  As the most verbal child, Lillie was the one sent to beg for the stale bread from the grocer downstairs, often terrified of what might happen to them if he said no.  The only heat in the house was from the coal in the cooking stove.

University Settlement House
At a young age, Lillie’s oldest sister brought her to the nearby University Settlement House. Founded in the 1880s, this organization has assisted thousands of new immigrants living in poverty, nurturing a dream, and struggling to adapt to a new country. From the first moment, Lillie loved everything she did at the Settlement House and credits them with “saving my life” by exposing her to the broadest range of artistic and intellectual pursuits and providing refuge from her poverty. They even sent her to their Camp Tioranda in Beacon, NY, for a few weeks after she fainted from anemia. At the Settlement House she was first exposed to the three great arts that became central to her life: dance, pottery and cello.  

At age 13, Lillie met the painter and artist Ben-Zion when he was teaching at Settlement House through the W.P.A.  He taught her to see the world in a new way, and he and his wife became her lifelong mentors and close friends. She always considered him the absolute “epitome of an artist” – fully committed in every way. Later, through her husband Joseph, she also became close friends with the painter Joseph Solman.  Solman and Ben-Zion, along with Mark Rothko, Adolph Gottlieb and others, were members of “The Ten,” a seminal and influential group of Expressionist painters in the late 1930s.

Dance, Pottery, Cello
Through scholarships, and while working numerous jobs to make ends meet, Lillie became a modern dancer at age 18, in the early days of modern dance in New York.  While continuing to study with Martha Graham, she danced in companies headed by pioneers Anna Sokolow (who liked to introduce her as her “little sister” because they looked so much alike) and Jean Erdman.  She remembered well Joseph Campbell, who was married to Erdman, and whose vast knowledge of mythology informed many of his wife’s dances and costumes.  In those early days, John Cage was a young pianist, not yet famous, who frequently played for their rehearsals, and Merce Cunningham was a young company member who duetted with Lillie before he went on to form his own company. She also danced often in New York City’s vibrant Yiddish Theater, sometimes three shows in a day, to make extra money.

Lillie was first exposed to working with clay at Settlement House. After she married and finally ended her dance career, she became a distinguished potter, working for more than 60 years at Greenwich House Pottery in Greenwich Village. First starting with the wheel there in the early days, she then worked primarily as a hand builder, developing her eye and her craft in the close community of her many beloved Greenwich House teachers and colleagues. For her, Greenwich House was more than simply a place to do pottery: it continually renewed her creative and artistic passions and, particularly after she was widowed, it became a wonderful social world where she thrived in a loving community. She had two well-received individual shows there, the most recent, Meditations on an Unending Line, in 2016 at age 95.

In her 60s, Lillie returned to the cello, studying seriously with her renowned and beloved teacher, Barbara Mallow, and playing in chamber groups. Years later, finger arthritis forced her to give up playing, but her deep love and understanding of music, and the cello in particular, always remained. Also in her 60s, she returned to her roots in the Lower East Side to teach English as a Second Language to immigrant children.

Legacy
Lillie and Joseph Miller were married for 65 years until his death in 2011. Joe was the president and CEO of Miller Harness Company, originally at 123 E. 24 St. in Manhattan, and one of the world’s largest suppliers of English-style saddlery, riding apparel and equestrian equipment.

Lillie was a devoted mother, grandmother, great grandmother, aunt and friend to many.  She had an unusual capacity to be completely present in her life and with people, inspiring creativity and imagination, qualities she brought to everything she did.  She was a deep listener, offering comfort and reflection to the many who entrusted her with the deepest and most vulnerable aspects of their beings and lives.

She is survived by her two sons, David of New York City and Daniel of New Rochelle, her two daughters-in-law, her five grandchildren and her great granddaughter.  Her daughter Julie passed away in 2005.

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Dan and David Miller are Lillie Miller’s sons.