(1911 – 1964)
Contributed by her great-great granddaughter Keely Ellman
Catherine Margaret Korytoski Miller was born somewhere in Illinois in 1911, though most of her life was spent in and around Porter, a small town in Northwest Indiana. The oldest of six children, Kate married Frank Miller, a painter by trade and artist by hobby, in 1934 and moved to another house in Porter on Franklin Street. Due to family financial troubles, though, by 1940, the Millers (Frank, Kate, and three of the four children they would have: Joanne, 4; Nels, 3; Margo, 11/12; Helen, not born until 1943) lived in Porter at 119 Beam Street instead with Kate’s parents, her five siblings including her oldest sister Mary, Mary’s husband Charles Meyne, the two Meyne children, and a paying boarder to make ends meet. Kate kept home with Mary’s help and took care of this hectic household of sixteen until they could afford to live separately around the Porter area, perhaps preparing her for life in the next decade when Frank would be drafted into the Navy.