Literacy advocate Nancy Miller is Marion Public Library’s ‘biggest cheerleader’

MARION — When Nancy Miller meets someone new, she’s quick to offer $100.

The answer is almost always yes, so she keeps a stack of the bills in her purse. She gives them out freely, and she usually pairs the exchange with a friendly smile to boot.

But almost instantly, recipients will notice something is off with their gift. Yes, Benjamin Franklin is pictured on the bill, but he’s winking impishly from his seal. Underneath his smiling visage is the phrase “in libraries we trust.” Another note identifies the paper as “legal tender for the marking of reading materials.”

A closer look reveals not a $100 bill at all, but a bookmark meant to highlight libraries.

“I’ve given them to children. I’ve given them to adults, library visitors, nice people I meet at the store,” Miller said. “It’s a very typical, whimsical second-grade schoolteacher thing to do, but it always makes people smile.”

Miller, a retired teacher from Cedar Rapids, is an active member of the Marion Public Library board of trustees and was the primary donor to the former city library — named the Nancy A. Miller Public Library after her — that was damaged in the 2020 derecho.

A new Marion Public Library since has been erected, but Miller’s support for the institution hasn’t ended just because her name is no longer on the building. Rather, she’s more dedicated than ever to seeing the institution grow.

In recognition of her local literacy efforts, Miller recently received the 2025 Morris F. Neighbor Community Impact Award, an annual award given to an individual or organization who has made a significant impact in the community.

Marion Public Library Director Bill Carroll nominated Miller for the city-issued award and called her the “perfect candidate” for such a community-centered honor, given her three-decade tenure supporting Marion’s library.

“Nancy is a true force for good,” Carroll said. “She’s not just a donor. She’s an advocate (for public libraries), a spokesperson and someone who truly believes in the mission of what a public library can do.”

The glass award — engraved with Miller’s name — now sits in her Cedar Rapids home next to a stack of books and several pieces of handmade art. It was an honor to receive the award, Miller said, but one that she humbly denies any real credit for.

“It should be my parents' names on there, not mine,” Miller said, noting that her library donation came from the inheritance she received after her parents’ death. “They were the ones who made this happen. I was just the conduit.”

Art, creativity key in early life

Miller grew up in Manitowoc, Wis., as the youngest of two girls born to an Irish immigrant mother and a working-class Wisconsin father. Her family ran the town’s only furniture store, and its showroom offered Miller one of her first creative outlets.

Color, shape and texture are key underpinnings of interior design, Miller said, and she learned about each during the countless hours spent helping her father arrange and maintain the store to curate the best aesthetic results.

“I’ve always loved color. I love all the different textures and movement,” Miller said. “The way people use different colors or styles … I think it can really be a sort of reflection of who they are as a person.”

The work gave her a keen sense of style that would develop into a deep and lasting love of the arts. Her appreciation of visual arts was strengthened even further, however, by the time she spent without her sight.

Miller lost her vision at age 6 in a playtime accident. A girl visiting Miller’s neighbors approached her and proposed a game of “Cowboys and Indians” using some props the girl had brought from home — including some children’s archery equipment.

The other girl fired a single arrow, and it struck Miller directly in the eye. The result was immediate and total blindness.

“It can be very traumatic to have something like that happen when you're so young. The day is still so vivid in my mind,” said Miller, now 81. “It really was a day that changed the focus of my life forever.”

Miller was rushed to the hospital, but the injury would require extensive treatment. She spent the majority of the next two years at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., where she did eventually recover sight in one eye.

She credits her ability to endure the experience to the support of her family and the generosity of the hospital’s volunteers and staff. Each day, a nurse or volunteer would visit Miller’s room to read books or play music to keep her imagination alive and her mind off the treatment process.

The visits fostered Miller’s love of literature and taught her the importance of generosity and caring for others.

“When they read to me, I was able to imagine what the animals or people looked like in my mind and build these tremendous (mental) images,” she said. “I’ll never forget the value of those moments someone gave me during the lowest point in my life.”

Injury offers inspiration

Inspired by that experience, Miller decided from a young age that she wanted to work with children. She considered becoming a nurse, but eventually opted for teaching.

In doing so, Miller’s goal was to find a way to share the power of knowledge and storytelling with other children in the same way the hospital volunteers had done for her.

“Stories speak to the creativity of the human mind,” Miller said. “There’s all different kinds and varieties. You can make up your own story or interpret someone else’s. You can learn something new or have fun with something old.”

Miller received her teaching degree from Marquette University, and she went on to teach grade school in Wisconsin, Indiana, Illinois and Iowa. She settled in Cedar Rapids in 1978 and soon began teaching second grade at St. Pius X Elementary School there.

While teaching at St. Pius, she met Rockwell Collins engineer Steven Miller. The two were both divorced, single parents, and they quickly hit it off over their shared love of family and faith. The pair wed in 1982 in a union that created a true blended family.

“I had three kids (from my first marriage), and Steven had two, but we never did the whole ‘stepchild’ thing,” Nancy Miller said. “They were all our children and a part of the family just like anyone else.”

Ten years later, Miller’s mother died following an extended illness. Her father had passed several years earlier and per their wishes, all their possessions were to be split between their two daughters.

The family seldom spoke about finances, Miller said, so she was shocked when she was told she would receive a $1 million inheritance.

“Never in my life did I think that I would see $1 million,” Miller said. “It was beyond anything I could have ever dreamed of as a second grade teacher who was working to raise a family.”

Once that surprise faded, however, Miller was left with the question of how to use those funds, and it wasn’t long before her thoughts turned to philanthropy.

Literary legacy lives on

Before her mother’s death, Miller had become a regular volunteer at Marion’s old Carnegie library. Built in 1905, the building had been embraced by the surrounding community, but it was beginning to show its age.

City officials had been discussing the need for a new facility for several years, but conversations stalled due to a lack of funding.

After receiving her inheritance, Miller saw a chance to not only kick-start that project but to also further her personal and professional goal of increasing area residents’ access to books and other sources of knowledge.

She donated $650,000 to the city in what turned out to be the single largest private donation received for the roughly $4.2 million project. Construction crews broke ground on the project in 1995, and a grand opening celebration was held in 1996.

The library was named in Miller’s honor to recognize her substantial donation, and she was given a lifetime position on the board of trustees.

“I was given an opportunity when my vision came back to make every day special, and as flowery as it sounds, but this donation was one way to do that,” Miller said. “I wanted to do something good because I’d been the recipient of so much goodness from others.”

Ever since, the library has been a constant throughout the many changes in Miller’s life.

Miller retired from St. Pius in 1995, and her children have since grown up and moved away to start families of their own. She and Steven took to traveling in their retirement, and they celebrated 34 years of marriage prior to his death in 2017.

Miller has taken on several new hobbies and volunteer roles in the Cedar Rapids area, although her time with the Marion library remains her longest standing engagement. She now sits on four library committees, and she remains an active volunteer at library events.

“Nancy is someone who, yes, made a significant donation to the old library, but her contributions are more than just monetary,” Carroll said. “In the time I’ve been here, she’s really been one of the Marion Public Library’s biggest cheerleaders.”

The new Marion Public Library opened in 2022, and the former Nancy A. Miller Public Library site has been razed for future development.

Looking ahead, Miller said she’s excited to see what the future holds for both the library itself and the stories it provides.

“Storytelling has been around since before people could write. Then we went from stone-etched tablets to scrolls to printed books, and now there’s audiobooks and (digital) copies,” Miller said. “I don't know what the next big thing will be, but I know we’ll keep telling stories.”

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