Elon Levina (Tubbs) Miller, 98, of Colby, died Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2014.

To know Elon was to know a woman who loved God, her family and hard work. To know her better was to unearth a library of treasured stories from her 98 years on earth, which she'd happily recall over a game of cards.

She might tell you of her childhood. She was born on a farm north of Levant, Kan. on June 27, 1916, and delivered by the grandmother from whom she got her name, or that she lived in a barn while her father built their house in Levant. She might tell you of her adolescence. Of her days working as a chicken plucker, dancing to the music of her father's fiddle, or playing center position on the Levant girls' basketball team, class of 1935.

She would speak fondly of her young adulthood, training for and becoming a teacher in a one-room schoolhouse to make a difference through education. She would certainly tell you of her life with her late husband, Bill; how their eyes first met across her father's dance hall; how she was married in a simple black dress during the height of the dustbowl and went right back to work; how she hunted rattlesnakes with her .22 rifle or how she could do all that and still make a delicious noodle dish in time for supper. She would pat the scar on her belly to tell you about her only child, Bill, or "Billy", as she called him, and how she lay in the hospital for three weeks to deliver him until they found a different way.

And, all of these stories she would tell you in her home filled with photos of her four grandchildren, her five great-grandchildren, her other family and her friends. And, you would see what they already knew: that she was strong even to her last breath and a model of what it means to be a woman.

She was preceded in death by her husband, Willard Miller Sr.; her grandson, Darren Miller; her siblings, Fred, Viola, Wayne, Isabella, Lorraine, Evelyn, George, Minnie and Jim; and her parents, George and Pearl Tubbs.

Elon is survived by her son, Willard Miller Jr. "Bill" and wife Peggy; her grandchildren, Shelly Wilson and husband Todd, Lacey Brott and husband Nolan, and Taylor Miller; her great-grandchildren, Landon and Reece Wilson, Raynce, Dryce and Wyncee Brott; and two siblings, Blanche Bottorf and Gerald Tubbs.

Visitation will be 4-7 p.m. Friday, Aug. 29, at Baalmann Mortuary, Colby. Funeral services will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 30.
Donations may be made to the Levant Community Church and may be left in care of Wilson Family Funeral Home, P.O. Box 166, Minneapolis, KS 67467.