THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, January 5, 1996 TAG: 9601050462
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: Medium: 61 lines
It is not surprising that at the death of Helen Hill Miller the other day at age 96 she had just completed a memoir, ``Washington Observed.''
That would have held true at any time in her career, for she was busy always on a major work, not out of a sense of discipline but from a lust for learning. She relished work.
She wrote upwards of 20 books, each researched exhaustively on the scene, ranging in topics from the site of King Arthur's Round Table to a defining biography of Virginia's least-known founding father, ``George Mason, Gentleman Revolutionary.''
Former Gov. Colgate Darden said the portrait of Mason should have merited the Pulitzer Prize.
Her elder son, Andrew Pickens Miller, once said, ``Mother is apt to write about anything in which she is interested, and she is interested in most everything.''
Talk with her was a joy. On any subject, she offered insights. Her blue eyes, under wavy white hair, were sharp; her movements and words quick, wren-like. Her laughter a delight. Her air, eagerness.
She began writing books when she began writing. A linoleum-bound scrapbook of childhood compositions is titled ``Poem Book.''
From the start, too, she was a rebel. When a seventh-grade teacher favored one boy and failed another, Helen rallied his friends and led them to the principal's office to protest. They won his reprieve.
``I had a complete adolescent revolt.'' she said. ``The society of Lake Forest, Ill., where I grew up, was most exploitive and I walked out of it, body and soul. . . on my own.''
In Bryn Mawr, dissatisfied with English teachers, she led her friends in collecting funds to bring to the campus a then little known New Hampshire poet, Robert Frost.
To broaden her horizons, she went to Oxford University to study economics and political science. There she met Francis Pickens Miller just out of the army, studying history and theology. He courted her on the tennis court.
She was ``perfectly outraged'' at his calling her shots good ``when it was obvious even from my end of the court they were out.''
He called her ``The little Puritan.'' With her at his side, he brought competition to Democratic primaries in races for governor in 1949 and the U.S. Senate in 1951.
Their son, Andrew, won a race for attorney general and lost one for governor. Another son, Robert, is a leader in the Presbyterian Church.
After earning a Ph.D. at the University of Chicago, she became a correspondent for The Economist, then Newsweek, and began the books that still beckon. One, ``The Case for Liberty,'' is as fresh as today's headlines on the Bill of Rights. And will remain so. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Helen Hill Miller, dead at 96, wrote upwards of 20 books, each
researched exhaustively on the scene.
by CNB