02/12/2023
This page is for everyone who loved Jone Miller so we can share our photos and memories with each other. I’ve cut and pasted her obituary below. Her love still shines on in all of our hearts!
Obituary for Jone Miller
Friends, neighbors and members of the Hudson Valley art and social justice communities are mourning the loss of Jone Miller. At the age of 80, her earthly life ended on January 22nd, 2023 in an unspeakably tragic fire that destroyed the home she shared with her husband Steven Schoen since 1973.
Jone was born in Allentown, PA on September 14, 1942 to Goldie Senderwitz and Earl Miller. Though she was small in stature, her passion to inspire, defend, nourish and heal as many lives as possible was unstoppable. Jone dedicated her life to service, searching out the underdogs and the injured, the people our culture often tries to hide away. She worked in psychiatric centers and prisons, with indigenous women and children on reservations in South Dakota, and with teenagers lost in the shadows of city streets. To all of them she offered her love and support.
She also lovingly cared for her mother for 15 years while Goldie’s Alzheimer’s Disease slowly progressed.
Jone was a graduate from Emerson College and The New School. She used her Master’s degree in drama therapy and her skills as a writer and artist to help empower people and shine a light of hope on their lives, both for their own inner journeys and for the world to see as well. She made invisible lives visible again.
Jone was also a Holocaust historian and documentarian, dedicating much of her research on the horrors of Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria. And while she never shied away from looking into the darkest experiences in our human histories, she was, in fact, always vibrant and emotive, dressing in every shade of purple and decorating her long dark hair with colorful wraps and beads. Her favorite mantra was “Happy New Day!”
Jone and Steven collaborated on many projects during their lives together. Most notably, the New York City based Floating Foundation of Photography, which Steven co-founded with his mother, Maggie Sherwood.
Jone was also an active volunteer for many community-based programs over her 50 years as an Ulster County resident. Since the start of the pandemic, she was a dedicated volunteer for the Ulster Immigrant Defense Network. Not only did she help with their weekly food distribution program for local immigrant families, but every single week she brought her delicious soups to nourish the volunteers as well. Jone loved to feed people and she did this with more than just food. She fed our weary spirits by sharing her magical and dramatic stories with us and by listening to our stories as well.
Jone Miller was one of a kind. Her playful and loving presence will be missed by so many, but none as much as her beloved husband, Steven. They would have celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary in February.
Jone is survived by her husband, Steven Schoen and her brother, Gary Miller of Plano, TX. Arrangements were provided by Moylan Funeral Home in Rosendale. A celebration of Jone Miller’s life will be planned for the spring. Donations can be made in her honor to the Ulster Immigrant Defense Network. ulsterimmigrantdefensenetwork.org/ or (888) 726-7276.
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