Published: December 22, 2008 10:16 pm      

Nurse never really retired

DANVILLE — One of this year’s Christmas Angels is a retired nurse who never really retired. She’s known as an angel to a current nurse who credits her with her career.

Linda Katcher met Miller, now 90, in 1968 when Katcher was a student volunteer at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital.

Katcher, who nominated Miller as a Christmas Angel, couldn’t stand the site of blood and got squeamish whenever she got a shot.

But a helpful mentor showed her the ropes of patient care .

“I came there looking for work,” she said. “But she made me feel like I was somebody.”

Katcher was just 15

years old when she began volunteering.

Every night and every weekend the pair worked together, Katcher learned something new.

“She always showed me one more thing I could do,” Katcher said.

The more she learned, the more excited she got about her future career.

“She made me want to learn more,” she said. “I kind of followed her around like a puppy.”

The next year, Katcher began nurse’s aid classes and began nursing school soon after.

Miller and Katcher worked together at St. Elizabeth Hospital until Miller retired in 1983.

Although she doesn’t work full-time anymore, she’s sometimes seen around the nursing home where

she lives helping the staff, said Sally Hanson, Miller’s daughter.

Katcher reminded Miller during a visit Monday of how much she’s meant to her.

“You made me feel like I could do it,” she said.

In addition to a lifelong passion for helping people, Miller directly affected the lives of other people in Katcher’s life.

As Katcher went on to nursing school, she inspired her own mother, who had been working in a factory.

Katcher said she probably would have followed her mom into factory work had it not been for Miller.

“You changed all of my family’s lives,” she said.

“Because you were enjoying it, I enjoyed it. Now all these years later, it’s been so much more,” Katcher said.

A full life

Miller and Katcher have another interesting thing in common besides their careers: they lived on the same street in Westville, although decades apart.

Born Agnes Latoz in Oklahoma’s Indian Territory in 1918, Miller moved with her family to Westville, where her father pursued jobs in coal mining.

When Miller’s mother died when Miller was two or three years old, she and her siblings moved into the Danville Children’s Home, where she lived until she reached the age limit for residency.

She attended St. Elizabeth’s nursing school in about 1940 for two years before she got married. At that time, nurses couldn’t be married, Hanson said.

Miller said nursing was an obvious career.

“I think it was about the cheapest schooling you could go to,” Miller said.

The volunteer work was on-the-job training, and the St. Elizabeth nursing school provided housing.

“They fed you and gave you a place to sleep,” Miller said.

She went back to work in the 1950s and worked for the next 25 years until she retired, but she continued working as a volunteer until two years ago when health issues prevented her from volunteering.

Hanson recently uncovered documents that indicate she put in 4,000 hours of volunteer work over 23 years.

“I liked helping people,” she said. “I really enjoyed every bit of it.”

So many people had such terrible things happen to them, that when they’re facing severe health issues or even tragic circumstances, they need a comforting person, she said.

Until just a couple years ago, Miller could be seen walking the miles between her home in the heights and St. Elizabeth’s.

Her work routine never left her. She still gets up before 5 a.m. at Colonial Manor.

“She’d do yoga, clean her house, take her shower and be at work by 6:30 a.m.,” Hanson said.

Miller’s other child, Tom, lives in Indiana. Miller has five grandchildren and several great-grandchildren.

Miller continues to amaze her daughter. Miller’s tireless energy and her widespread influence on Danville — despite sad times in her life — is inspiring.

“I’m still amazed by my own mother,” Hanson said.

“I’m really enjoying her. I’m finding out more about her all the time.”