Richard "Dick" Ralph Miller

The year was 1946; the day, Sunday, June 2nd. This is the day that a piercing blue eyed, left cheek dimpled baby, named Richard Ralph Miller, entered into the world to his parents Abbe and Bonnie Miller of Lincoln, NE. Less than two weeks after birth, Lincoln would record the highest temperature in its history of 111 degrees. That seems a fitting trajectory for a baby that would exit the world in the warm embrace of his wife of 57 years, Margie, on the hot summer day of Thursday, August 21, 2025. 

Dick was the oldest of three children. He was known to torment his sister Jeanne and brother Mike. Especially during baths, where he pretended to be a giant shark in their shared tub time. He was a St.Teresa’s grade school altar boy, and at the tender age of 10, would wake up at 5 a.m. to walk the dark path alone to church in order to serve Latin Mass. He learned every single prayer and phrase of Latin. Decades later, he would often recite this Latin to his grandchildren, quite randomly, and out of context. His spare time was spent doing what he loved most-playing baseball. He was a fantastic 3rd baseman for St. Pius X, with a wicked rocket arm. His #5 was legendary, for no one could throw as fast as him from 3rd to 1st base. He went to college at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln where he joined ROTC, and went on to earn a bachelor's degree in education and business. He could have played college baseball, but instead chose to help his mom and dad by working at the family owned Skelly Gas Station and Cafe on West O street. 

The greatest moment of his life was meeting his wife Margie in college. They married in February of 1968. Three major events happened over the next two years of his life. On the way to Las Vegas for his honeymoon, he took penicillin for the first time for an ear infection, and when the plane landed, he had a full anaphylactic allergic reaction that significantly affected his entire body for a full year. He also had a semi truck tire explode on him while filling it with air while working at the gas station. This explosion blasted the rim, missing his head by inches, and blew up his right arm. He sat in the emergency room for over 10 hours as the hospital staff did not know how to repair his arm. It was then that the UNL football team’s orthopedic surgeon came in and put Dick back together in a long surgery utilizing a large metal plate and four screws. This impact left an arm length scar and channeled his ball playing to coaching. During this time, he also welcomed into the world his first child; a left-dimpled daughter named Christa. 

Dick spent the next several years after college teaching business and DECA at high schools in Bellevue and Fremont. During this time, God blessed his family with the addition of a son, Michael. Dick used his business degree to work for a CPA firm, as an auditor for the Nebraska Credit Union League, and also owned his own gas station in Omaha-Miller’s Champlin, right off Center street. It was during this time at the gas station that Dick met a customer who convinced him that Sales was his true profession. 

Dick went on to become a highly accoladed sales rep for Clairol, Bard Pharmaceutical, and Abbott Ross Laboratories. While working for Abbott, he was so successful that he was promoted to National Sales Manager and the company wanted him to move to Minneapolis. Dick flew a prop plane for over a year to do headquarter calls from Nebraska to Minneapolis. He was born and bred a Nebraska Cornhusker and had no desire to leave the home state where his family roots were so deeply planted. He left Abbott on a high note, and moved into an independent sales rep position, starting his own company, aptly named Diamond Spirit Sales. Through Diamond Spirit Sales, Dick was a rep for multiple national manufacturer lines for several decades. 

While a natural, gifted salesman, Dick’s true gifts were on the baseball field. Whether playing softball, coaching his son, daughter, nephews, nieces, neighbors, or friends, he saw much success in all avenues. He coached and played for the team that won the Fall Men’s Slow Pitch River City Championship in 1987. His brother Mike, and childhood friend Chris, played with him on this team. Dick loved to coach as much as play and was his son Michael's coach for years. His sister Jeanne’s son Eric was a bat boy for Dick at one point. He also coached Jeanne’s son Nick’s baseball team and his college daughter’s theatre softball team. A great joy for Dick was being part of the original founding group of the new Over 40 Baseball League in Omaha, where he was a coach and player for years. Nearly all of Dick’s nieces and nephews have stories of Uncle Dick playing catch with them on any given family visit. He was always encouraging, reminding them that they can play any position. He told Jeanne’s son Nick that “Everything you were told is BS, don’t do it.” His niece Renee stated it best in that Dick loved to connect with others through baseball and he had a great sense of humor. Dick knew the best position for a person long before that person ever came to the same realization, just ask his nephew Paul. For Christa’s friend Lori, who developed a love of the game in her 20s, he would love to answer any questions she could throw at him. He educated her about what a balk is, why Pete Rose should not be allowed to coach again, or what the hand signals and intricacies of the game were all about. Baseball was more than a game to Dick. It was a math equation and a thinking man’s education. 

In 2000, Dick and Margie sold their long-time home and bought a duplex in order to take care of his mother-in-law. This selfless act, set the stage for his own daughter to open her home during the 2020 pandemic for Dick and Margie to live with Christa and her husband Rex and their children. No matter where Dick called home, he always had a garden. He loved to grow tomatoes, baby onions and radishes. 

Over the decades of marriage, Dick enjoyed rescuing animals. In total over the years he and Margie had 14 dogs, 2 cats, 2 parrots. Their first dog was an all black puppy that Dick surprised Margie with. His last dog was an all black puppy that Margie surprised Dick with. 

Throughout Dick’s life, the love of family, and love of all people in general, captivated his days. His nights were more often than not spent with his grandchildren. Dick’s son brought him one grandson, Christopher. His daughter brought him Max, Ashton, Katya, Jacob, and Natalya. And Max added wife Rebecca, Ashton added wife Paige, and Jacob added fiance Karyssa. These grandchildren were the focus for his later years of life. While the love of baseball was his sport of choice, he really enjoyed the love of music and dancing with his grandkids. He spent hours playing country western songs, belting out the Bee Gees tunes on his big screen tv, or blasting the Three Tenors and Pavarotti. He had quieter moments of singing Peter, Paul and Mary’s Puff the Magic Dragon to his children and grandchildren. But always, he was full of laughter and life, dancing the night away in the living room. 

In 2024 Dick laid his son, Michael Lee Henry Miller to rest. After this, Dick experienced declining health and would tell people that his family told him he had “dumb-mentia” (dementia.) He never believed that diagnosis, which could be evidenced by his near daily pointing to Christa and telling her “You’re my daughter!” Dick became the official mailman while living in his daughter’s home. He took this retirement job very seriously, in spite of wearing a mailman costume that Christa insisted upon. He would not eat lunch until the mail arrived. And on the days that it was late, boy did everyone hear about it! Luckily the real USPS mailman went to high school at Pius X, so Dick was forgiving in his long wait for lunch. 

Dick had a quick series of falls in mid July to August. He suffered multiple fractures, first in his tailbone and then his pelvis and back. This progressed his dementia and an esophageal narrowing. While suffering in the hospital, he still kept his quick wit and hilarious sense of humor. Upon first meeting Will, his hospice nurse, Dick told him his often used and infamous line: “Call me Big Dick!” (To Christa’s friends, they were to all call him “Uncle Dick”.) 

The family brought him home to hospice on Friday, August 15. A massive rash was discovered upon leaving the hospital. It was believed this was an allergic reaction to the pain medications he was on, similar to his allergic reaction decades prior to penicillin. Once he was at home in hospice, the raging red rash overtook his entire body. This caused great itching and discomfort, which was exacerbated by the broken pelvis, back, and tailbone. The hospice Chaplain, along with Margie, Christa, and Margie’s sister, Bonnie, prayed over Dick. “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” (Mt. 18:20) They prayed to God and asked if the rash could not go away, He could at least make the itching stop. Miraculously, the horrific full body itching, which had only kept progressing, subsided within hours. The raging red rash then calmed, and within a day had dissipated. Dick passed away on Thursday, August 21, 2025, which the family later realized is the original Knock Apparition of August 21, 1879, where the people who had witnessed the Apparition were miraculously cured of their ailments. This is a Catholic Feast Day for Our Lady of Knock. God used Dick as a witness to the power of prayer. 

The family requests memorials in Dick’s name be made to any of the following: Walk to End Alzheimer’s-Greater Omaha: http://act.alz.org/goto/inmemoryDickMiller, St. Wencelaus Catholic Church, Mary Our Queen Catholic Church