Claude B. Miller was born in Ketchum, Oklahoma in 1900.  He was the middle child and eldest son of the family. His father, George Miller passed away when he was 15 years old and he was the support for his mother until he went to China to share the gospel.  Even then, he sent one-third of his monthly income to his mother.

He married Victoria Martin in the mid-1920’s and they went together to Beijing (Peking then) to study the language and customs of the Chinese people.  After this period of study they were assigned by M. C. Warren to begin the work for the Mao tribe who lived in the mountains surrounding Kunming in the province of Yunan.

He and a co-worker, Dallas White, a nurse, prepared tracts and walked from one village to the next for 2-3 months at a time.  He would take his cornet with him and when they entered the village, he would begin to play hymns and the villagers would come running since the cornet was such a strange sound to them.  They would invite the villagers to return after their work in the fields and bring the sick and hear a very important message from the “God above all gods” that evening.  When they passed back through the villagers on the way home they would preach and check on the health of those they cared for earlier.

One time, when the men were “itinerating,” a tragedy occurred at home.  Two men broke into the apartments where the wives and White’s two daughters were living and murdered Mrs. Miller and Mrs. White.  The America Consul went to meet the men at the end of the bus line where he had sent a runner with the message “Come home immediately.  Your families need you.”

The heartsick men buried their wives.  Dallas White took his children and went back to Shanghai and later remarried.  Claude Miller stayed on for several more years working alone to share Jesus’ love in the Southwest China Mission.

Later on, he met and married one of the secretaries in the China Division Office, Irene Dawson from Massachusetts.

Claude and Irene went back to Kunming to carry on the work there.  On one occasion when Claude was away from home, Irene saw two unfamiliar men come to church on Sabbath.  Her church friends pointed them out to her as the men who had just gotten out of jail from the murder of Victoria Martin Miller and Mrs. White.

During this time the Bartholomew family joined the Millers. Milton and Helen Lee soon arrived to begin the work in Mokiang.  The Miller’s added a daughter to their family, Victoria Irene.

After working in Kunming, the Millers were transferred to North-West China in Lanchow.  During this time World War II reached this area.  Many Chinese lives were lost.  Later, the Millers were transferred again to Chungking.  The bombing was very intense and wives were advised to go with their children to a “safe” place in the Philippines, Baguio! Irene Miller refused to leave her husband, but they sent their daughter to DaBau to stay with Thomas, Hazel, and Larry Geraty at the college there.  

Claude became very ill with a bleeding gastric ulcer. The family was to get a flight into Assam, Burma and from there into India and there awaited troop-ship transportation back to the United States.

After World War II they accepted a “call” to work in the East China Union Mission in Shanghai.  They worked at Yuyuen Road Mission until the Communists took over Shanghai.  They agreed to leave only after it became apparent their presence in Communist China was making it perilous for our Chinese workers and friends.

The last assignment in China for Claude and Irene Miller was in the early 1960’s when they followed LeClair Reed as President of the Hongkong-Macao Mission.  Later, they were assigned to the South China Island Union in Taiwan, and worked there for several more years.  They retired in Lakeport, California.  Claude Miller died there in 1979.  His wife, Irene lived another fifteen years in Visalia, California.