Richard B. Miller was born in September 1853 in Illinois to Robert B. Miller and Mary Ann Austin Miller. His father was a grocer, and Richard also worked in the grocery business. The 1880 census recorded him as working in the grocery field in Prairie, Illinois, and noted that he was lame from a broken leg. On September 30, 1880, Richard married Lorinda Florence Reeder in McLean County, Illinois.
Lorinda Florence Reeder was born on a farm in January 1855 in Warren County, Ohio, to George Washington Reeder and Jane Thompson Reeder. She worked as a teacher and dressmaker before her marriage.
Details of the next twelve years of their life are uncertain. Around 1892, the Millers and their two children had moved to Trinidad, Colorado. Mrs. Miller operated a photo studio, while her husband ran a fruit-and-candy store. Later, they both worked at the studio, and they remained there until 1897.
In the fall of 1897, Miller relocated his studio to Gaylord, Kansas. He spent the next decade in Kansas, moving among small towns, and sometimes operating a photo car. Mrs. Miller ran the studio when her husband traveled. In 1901, the family moved to Atchison, Kansas, where he worked first as a photographer and later as a house painter. By 1909, the Millers lived in Beloit, Kansas. In the 1910 federal census, Mrs. Miller is listed as a photographer and her husband as a house painter. In 1917, they left Kansas for Spokane, Washington, where their daughter and her family lived.
Richard B. Miller passed away on January 4, 1925, in Salina, Kansas. He was buried at Gypsum Hill Cemetery in Salina. Mrs. Miller spent the final years of her life in Riverside, California. She died on May 20, 1945, and is buried at Olivewood Cemetery in Riverside.
Thank you to the staff at History Colorado, including Jori Johnson, Ann Sneesby-Koch, Aaron Marcus, and Joy Saliu, for providing access to their photo collection and for providing scans.
