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Helen Jeanette Miller Site Contributor
MADISON, Wis. – Helen Jeanette Rostad Miller, age 100, died on Saturday, April 24, 2021.
Helen was born to Norwegian Immigrants, Jacob and Setona Rostad, on October 25, 1920 in rural DeForest, WI. She attended a one room grade school, graduated from DeForest High and from the Groves-Barnhard Business School in Madison. Helen married Loyd H. Miller on January 10, 1943. Helen was a stoic Norwegian in many ways and credited her longevity to her Viking blood.
Helen’s life was greatly impacted by her family background and by farm life during the Depression. She grew up in an area heavily populated by people of Norwegian heritage, but most had been in this country for a generation or more. Her family were the “newcomers.” She talked of being self-conscious and shy due to that newcomer status and her and her family’s broken English. Like now, children of the 1920s could be cruel to others who were different.
Students in the Madison Metropolitan School District have been learning mostly from home since March, when schools closed as the COVID-19 pandemic became a reality here.
Hundreds of thousands of their peers around the United States are facing similar circumstances, especially in larger, urban areas. But others â both here and around the world â have returned to classrooms.
A group of Dane County parents has been advocating to change that since late this summer, with recent efforts including marches and demonstrations ahead of school board meetings in Verona and Middleton. An âOpen Dane County Public and Private Schoolsâ Facebook group has more than 1,100 members.