After high school, she moved to Kansas City and soon married George Edward Miller who had also graduated from Rich Hill High. At the end of 1954, at the age of 19, she became a mother to her son Steven. She was married to George for almost 20 years.
By spring of 1958, she was a mother of 2 with the birth of my sister Leisa Karen. Mother was a housewife into the mid 1960s and then began a career in real estate sales. She was very proud of her participation in the American Businesswomen’s Association and various real estate boards. She ended her working career with the Social Security Administration.
Lenore was always a devout follower of Jesus Christ. Many periods in her life you would find her at church on Sundays and Wednesdays. She had a strict interpretation of the books of the New Testament. She never once allowed the “poison” of alcohol to touch her lips. Yes, never. She did not drink coffee, but she loved Dr. Pepper! Her leanings were toward the teachings of the Baptist church. She admired the Amish/Mennonite church/communities. She never, ever used the Lord’s name in vain. She never swore or cussed at all. Yes, never.
Her faith never faltered. In her last weeks, when awakened from a sleep by Sue and I or a hospice caregiver, she would awake by humming a hymn as words would escape her. In The Garden and It Is Well With My Soul are a couple of her favorites. Without a doubt, I can say that she is in Heaven; or there isn’t one. I choose to believe she is in Heaven with my sister Karen.
Mother passed away at the age of 91 on the evening April 21, 2026. She seemed unbelievably happy, under the circumstances, to the end of last year. Lenore lived independently 2010 – 2017, with Karen’s assistance, in Columbia MO. By 2020, she began needing assisted care. In 2023, she required skilled nursing and entered a hospice phase. She died, in comfort, of natural causes, at the end of a 3 yr stay in and out of hospice care.
She is preceded in death by her parents, her sister Hazel Briscoe Weber and by her daughter Leisa Karen Miller Bonk, (who died in July of 2017 at the age of 59). She is survived by: Her son Steven (& Marilyn Sue) Miller of Columbia MO. Her Grandson Samuel (& Jordyn) Miller of Kansas City, MO. Her Grandson Evan Bonk of Colorado Springs, CO. Grandchildren Aurora, Tobias and Gaia. Her sister Hazel’s girls: Sandra (&Thomas) Balfour and Lorrissa all of Florida.
Lenore is being buried alongside the graves of her mother and father in the Independence Cemetery near Stotesbury (and Hume) MO as were her written instructions from many years ago. Terry Heuser of the Heuser Funeral Home in Rich Hill, MO will handle the proceedings. We understand that her Aunt Flossie Wetzel was the most recent burial there in 2009. May mother rest in well-deserved peace!
I am so happy to return Mother to her home as she requested. Thank you for helping us to say Good-Bye to Lenore with a smile./
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