Remembering Serge L. Miller ’51 GP’12 ’20

His wife, Elizabeth Dwight Bellinger Miller, was the great-granddaughter of Frederick and Abigail Gunn, and the granddaughter of Mary Gold Gunn and John Brinsmade, second Head of School, as well as a loyal friend and supporter of Gunn. Together the Millers raised four children in Washington, Keith, Cyrus, Wendy, and Chapin P’12 ’20, who was a Gunn faculty member from 1997 to 2018 and served as Academic Dean and Assistant Head of School alongside his wife, Anna Carew-Miller P’12 ’20, a member of the English Department faculty and English Department Chair. Their daughters, Callie Carew-Miller ’12 and Mary Carew-Miller ’20, followed in their grandfather’s footsteps by graduating from Gunn. 

Born in Paris, France, Miller arrived at Gunn as a freshman in the fall of 1947 and distinguished himself as “one of the leaders of his class,” according to the 1951 Red and Gray. He played varsity football and was a member of the ski team, but was most proficient at rowing, the yearbook editors said, noting that in his senior year, he was team captain and rowed in stroke seat in the first boat. Beyond athletics, Miller was a member of the Gunnery News staff, Dramatics Club, Dance Committee, Photographic Editor of the Red and Gray, and was appointed a Monitor his senior year.

“He was a great guy, low key, and just easy to get along with,” recalled Former Trustee Bruce Bradshaw ’51, who was Miller’s roommate in Brinsmade during sophomore year and a lifelong friend.

Cy Miller recalled some of the stories his father told about being a Gunn student. “They would get bag lunches on the weekends and take them wherever they wanted to go. He and Henry Osterweis ’51 actually camped across from Winnie Walsh’s P’80 ’11 place on Route 199 and fried eggs in a pan.”

Following Miller’s graduation from Gunn, he served for two years in the U.S. Army and attended Yale, where he rowed for one year and took drawing with the artist Josef Albers, who was chair of the Yale School of Art’s Department of Design from 1950 to 1958. “He was an avid photographer,” Cy Miller said, explaining that although his father took some architecture courses, he eventually chose to major in French at Yale. He would spend summers in Nice and Paris, France, where his mother, Jane Morrison Miller P'51, had a home, and later earned additional degrees from the University of Grenoble, the University of Aix en Provence.
 
In 2006, Serge Miller shared the story of how he met his wife, Liz, at Yale, where her father, Alfred Bellinger, was Lampson Professor of Latin: “Although I knew of her presence in Washington as a student at The Gunnery, it was not until I was at Yale that I would see her going to work, walking in her high heels, click, click, click, on her way to work at the Yale Health Department. At that time her father was Dean of Yale College. On an Alumni Day at The Gunnery, I saw her — her family lived in Washington. And I remarked on it to my French teacher, Charlie Coit. He called her on my behalf, and we got to meet at the Alumni baseball game. When I finally got up my nerve, I went into the Yale Health Department with a fake eye problem. I asked her out to dinner — she demurred. So I turned and went to leave. As I was opening the door, I turned and asked — ‘how about lunch?’ That did it — for about 48 years.”

The couple announced their engagement in 1956, bought a house on South Street in 1959, and three years later, Serge Miller joined the Gunn faculty under then-Head of School Ogden D. Miller H’69 P’50 ’54 ’55 GP’84. In addition to teaching mechanical drawing and developmental math his first year, Serge Miller was a member of the Alumni News Board, the Alumni Association, advisor to Press Club, Photography Club, and Dance Committee, Director of Exhibits, and Assistant Coach for Crew and “Midget Football,” according to the Red and Gray.

He began teaching French in 1963 and took on additional duties during his eight years at the school, including Assistant Coach of Thirds Football and Director of Outdoor Club with Ned Swigart P’82. He was a faculty advisor for French Club, Alliance Francaise, the Audio-Visual Club, Chess Club, Day Students, and served as Chairman of the Activities Committee. In 1970, he earned his master’s in French from Trinity College, which he completed by taking night classes while teaching, Cy Miller said. 

“I know he liked being a crew coach,” recalled Miller’s nephew, Alex Bellinger ’68, who took French class with him at Gunn and rowed for him when he coached with Beebe and Assistant Coach James Rizzuto. “They would be shouting at us through their megaphones while we were in the shells.”

Cy Miller said he and his siblings would sometimes fill in at rowing practice “when a coxswain was missing," and accompanied his father and Beebe and the team when they raced at Lake Quinsigamond. He also has fond memories of playing on campus as a faculty child, and of time spent with faculty members Wally Rowe III H’57 P’77 ’79 and Norman Lemcke P''84 and their families.

"Michael Eanes H’90 P’90 GP’20 ’23 ’25 and my dad, when they were both teachers, and my brother, Keith, were up on the roof of Bourne, with no scaffolding, tarring the roof to get rid of leaks. That was the sort of place The Gunnery was back then. Everybody chipped in," Cy recalled, passing along another memory that his brother, Keith, shared, involving a scavenger hunt that Rowe organized on campus for faculty children. "The very last clue was, 'I can see you, but you can't see me.' Apparently Wally was in the top of the Gunn Pine in the middle of campus. Waddy Rowe ’77 and Keith climbed all the way up to the top to touch him to finish that game."

By all accounts, the Miller family home on South Street, not far from South Street Fields, was a hub of community. “Very often, he would have advisees come to the house for spaghetti dinners,” said Cy Miller, who also recalled going to the kitchen at Gunn to see the Gherings, who would provide dinner for the family in a multi-tiered stainless steel pot they called “the bucket.” Each tier contained a different part of the meal, for example, a dessert, rolls, mashed potatoes, a vegetable, and pork chops.

“Beyond being a fully dedicated and well-loved school master, we remember Larry and Liz's dedication and active participation in local and national political issues and events. They were always up for lively and strongly felt positions about important and timely political issues,” said Eanes, who taught alongside Miller before becoming Head of School. “Secondly, Susan H’91 P’90 GP’20 ’23 ’25 and I fondly remember the wonderful gatherings at their home on South Street. The combination of Larry's cooking, the eclectic guest list, and the topics at hand meant there was never a dull or slow moment. Their place was truly one of 1960’s intellectual thinking, and repartee.”

“At school, Larry was a highly respected French teacher and crew coach, known as S.L. by the students,” Eanes continued. “He related unusually well to students of those times, particularly being instrumental in helping students not familiar with prep schools adjust to boarding life and school culture. Their home was alive with students, advisees, and rowers.”

After leaving Gunn in 1970, Miller started making copper lights and lanterns in the basement of his home, where he ran Washington Copper Works, which was his passion for over 40 years. An article published in 2009 by the Copper Development Association described how Miller worked with a small team of local artisans who crafted each light fixture by hand from flat copper sheets, and he grew the business so much that, by 2009, Washington Copper Works lighting could be found in every state, several countries, and even at Disneyland Paris.

“Many of us from that era have copper lamps to remind us of the wonderful SL and Liz and their family,” Eanes said.

Although Serge Miller had not attended Alumni Weekend for many years, Bradshaw said he and other alumni would visit him at his home on South Street whenever they were in Washington. “Dwight Miller ‘55, Trudy (Beebe) Miller, who was David’s wife, and people that knew Larry way back when would go to his house on Alumni Day to say, ‘Hello.’” His last visit to campus was in June 2024, when he attended a memorial service for David Miller ’54. 

According to Serge Miller’s obituary, the school motto, A Good Person is Always Learning, “epitomized the man he became. He was a lifelong learner, self-educator, and teacher. He was a Renaissance Man in the truest sense.”