The life of Ann Russell Miller was anything but moderate. A figure in San Francisco’s high society, mother of ten children, and friend of personalities such as Nancy Reagan or the comedian Phyllis Diller, she abandoned a life of luxury and parties to enter a cloistered Carmelite monastery in Illinois, where she spent more than three decades under the name Sister Mary Joseph. She passed away on June 5 at the age of 92 after suffering several strokes.
A life marked by extremes
Miller was born into a wealthy family: her father was president of Southern Pacific Railroad and her father-in-law founder of what would become the energy company PG&E. From a young age, she led a life of privileges, traveling on yachts in the Mediterranean and accumulating shoe collections that, according to one of her sons, made those of Imelda Marcos “seem insignificant.”
Married to Richard Kendall Miller, with whom she had ten children, she was involved in more than twenty charitable boards and founded the California chapter of the organization Achievement Rewards for College Scientists. “I dedicated two-thirds of my life to the world; the last third I will dedicate to my soul,” she said in 1989 during a massive farewell party with 800 guests, before entering the convent.
Three decades of cloister
That same year, she entered the Carmelite monastery of Des Plaines, Illinois, taking vows of silence, poverty, and prayer. Despite the initial disbelief of those who knew her, she remained faithful to the cloister for more than 30 years.
Her son Mark Miller recalled with humor on social media that “she was an unusual nun”: she sang off-key, often arrived late to her community duties, and even played with the convent’s dogs, even though it was not allowed. In the more than three decades in the monastery, he only saw her twice, always separated by iron bars.
Faith and family tensions
Although Catholic since her marriage, Miller’s faith intensified after the illness of a grandson, promising then to attend daily Mass for a year. She fulfilled the promise, and the devotion ended up marking her life. She traveled with priests to not miss the Eucharist and educated her children in a strict Catholicism: “Half of my weekly allowance went to the church,” recalled her daughter Donna Casey.
That religious rigor generated family tensions. She did not recognize some of her children’s marriages because they had not been celebrated in the Church, which affected her bond with several grandchildren. Even so, for Casey, her mother’s decision to enter the convent “made sense,” because she was incapable of living in half measures: “Everything was black or white.”
The final farewell
The Carmelite monastery where she resided in the last decades is preparing the funeral for the woman who was first a socialite and philanthropist, and then a cloistered religious. Her life was, as her daughter summarized, a path marked by extremes: from gala dances to silent prayer behind the convent walls.
Source: América. The Jesuite Review