Hey! Can I tell you about the worst vacation my parents ever went on?

My parents, Layli and Gil, took me, Amira, and my sister Serena for a nice vacation to New York, my Dad’s parents home. Unfortunately, all four of us for the past several weeks have been suffering from some kind of flu or something worse. What were they thinking!

When we arrived, both Serena and me were running a fever. My fever was 104 and they decided to take me to the emergency room of the hospital where I was admitted. For the next four days they administered antibiotics and Tylanol working to get my fever down and kill whatever the virus was that was causing it. They stuck more things in me and and up me gave me more tests than you can believe! It was really yucky! My mom, stayed with me for all three days and nights in the hospital. I liked that.

Finally, on Sunday my fever went down and we all drove home.

Here is the hospital and that cage behind me where I spent vacation! You can’t believe all the things they stuck in me! How about the beach next time!

My Mommy was great. She stayed with me all the time. If you think I was tired, you should see my Mom.

Hey, I was sick too. But, my aunts and uncles too good care of me.

by Barbara Bradley Hagerty

Gil, Layli and Serena Miller-Muro learn about helpfulness.

Rachel Galoob-Ortega helps her son Luka place a symbol of Buddhism on his lamp shade to illustrate the idea that religions may look different but have the same source that illuminates them.

Tatton Oliver, Brice Gaskins and Serena Miller-Muro with the lampshades they made.

Cowboy Hay performs for Shazia Philipsen and her daughter, Serena (in pink) as well as Brice Gaskins (pointing) and his brother Carter (crawling) Gaskins and Yacob Alemayehou.

Morning Edition, March 7, 2008 · It sounds like the start of a bad joke: A Jew, a Baptist and a Baha’i get together every Sunday morning …

But it’s a new kind of Sunday school, where families from a range of religions gather to teach virtues to their young children. On a recent Sunday in Falls Church, Va., Layli and Gil Miller-Muro invited parents and children — aged 14 months to 6 years old — to their home to learn about helpfulness.

“Parents of my generation feel incredible pressure to make our kids read earlier, to know math sooner and better, to get into the top preschools and then the best schools,” Layli explains. “But what many of us forget is the other side of the character of our children, not just the academic side, but the spiritual side and their character side.”

And so last September, the Miller-Muros, who are Baha’i, approached their religious community and asked them to sponsor a virtues class — where the children learn virtues such as obedience, service and friendliness.

In the past decade, the Baha’i faith has sponsored about 900 such classes nationwide. They’re based on the central Baha’i tenet that all religions are different but come from the same source, God. Gil says the couple then asked their friends if they’d be interested.

“When we proposed this idea to them, they said that was something they’d like to do to,” Gil says. “So we realized we had a critical mass and it was time to get started.”

The parents come from Muslim, Jewish, Protestant, Unitarian Universalist, Greek Orthodox and Baha’i backgrounds. Rachel Galoob-Ortega, who is Jewish, says she wants her son Luka to learn about and accept all religions.

“What I really want for Luka is when he grows up and someone says to him, ‘I’m Baha’i’ or ‘I’m Zoroastrian’ — if he doesn’t know, for him to say, ‘Well, tell me about that,”" Galoob-Ortega says. “I want him to show a level of curiosity, rather thinking, ‘Well, that’s not Judaism, that’s not what I know.’ And to me, that would be important to the development of his character.”

Learning Virtues

And to that end, Layli calls the children to the dining room table. In front of each child sits a little lamp shade.

“Remember how we talked about how religions are a lot like lamp shades?” she asks the group. “They may look different, they may be different colors or sit in different rooms, but they all have the light of God inside of them.”

The kids glue symbols of various religions onto the shades — a Christian cross, a Buddhist wheel, a star and crescent for Islam. Then Layli calls out, “Come to the light!” And the children, one by one, place their decorated lamp shades on a light bulb.

Layli then turns to the core of the program: virtues. She starts by asking about last week’s lesson.

“Did anyone exhibit contentment this week?” she asks the group sitting in the living room.

“Not me!” one boy announces.

“Not you?” she laughs. “We’ll work on that. But we’re good at honesty.”

Each week, the children learn a different virtue. They studied “justice” for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. For service, they made chocolate chip cookies and delivered them to a retirement home.

Mimi Alamayehou realized that she needed to expose her 5-year-old son, Yacob, to the notion of virtues after she had an epiphany a year ago. She and Jacob were visiting family in Ethiopia, and they saw some children begging.

“And I was telling him, ‘These kids don’t have any food and don’t have anything,’” she recalls. “And he said to me, ‘Mommy, I think you need to tell their mommies where the Whole Foods is.’” She laughs. “I was so shocked! I said, ‘Oh my God, I really have a lot of work to do if he thinks the only problem is that there’s no Whole Foods around!’”

So, do the virtues stick?

Shazia Philipsen thinks so, especially when she receives an occasional lecture from her daughter, Serena.

“It’s things like patience,” she says. “In the car, when I’m driving, Serena will say, ‘Mommy, you have to be patient!’ So she understands through the books, through the storytelling, what it means. I don’t think she learns that at school. She’s changed, and it’s great.”

And the children have been so patient for more than an hour, waiting for the highlight of the class, Cowboy Hay. Gil Miller Muro’s stepfather strides into the room, sporting a long white beard, a hillbilly hat and a banjo. He begins strumming and the kids join in, perhaps not realizing they are crooning a theological message.

“We are drops … of one ocean. We are waves… of one sea. Won’t you come and join us in our quest for unity. It’s the way of life for you and me,” they sing.

The parents collapse into comfortable chairs, as Cowboy Hay and his young virtuosos sing about unity in the complex future they face.

This is the photograph of Louis Miller from his naturalization papers.

louis_miller_naturalization.pdf

The PDF file is the actual naturalization document of Louis Miller.

Below is the entire series of emails between Dan Fingerman and myself that provides a good bit of background on the family.

Hi there:

Sorry for the delay I have recently started a new job and the holiday season is always busy. Attached are a few documents related to your grandparents Lena and Louis Miller. The first is a PDF of Louis Miller’s Petition for Naturalization. He became a citizen fairly late in life (at age 60). Also attached is an undated photo of Louis & Lena that my mother had. I’ve also cropped out the photo of Louis from his naturalization doc and attached it, I think you resemble him a lot.

Hope all is well-

-Dan

lmmiller <lmmiller@lmmiller.com> wrote:

Dan,

There is no doubt that this is the same family.

There is a lot of information about us on our family blog. What would be interesting, if you want to start making a family tree diagram and we can add who/who we know to it, I can post it on the web site. If you have any specific questions, please ask.

I would love to see the photo of Louis, my grandfather. I don’t have a picture of him. I can post this on the website as well.

Larry

From: Dan Fingerman [mailto:danfingerman@yahoo.com]
Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2007 11:31 AM
To: lmmiller
Cc: RBeish3806@aol.com; ‘Phil’; CMEELSPA@aol.com
Subject: RE: Hi!

Hello everyone-

I agree that this is very interesting. I wouldn’t say with certainty that your father’s birth name was Isidore. I have census records from 1900, 1910, 1920 and 1930 for all the branches of my family and the names given for the children are sometimes off.

I am not exactly sure where things unraveled and in all honesty my Grandfather rarely discussed his siblings. I’d imagine religion may have played a part, but as you correctly said it’s not too important.

Their oldest sister was Rose, and she is Jayson’s mother. She remained close with my grandfather, but died fairly young. Again I’m not sure of the details but Artie and Irving had a falling out and didn’t speak for many years. They re-met at a wedding in Florida in the 1980s and stayed in contact for the duration of their lives. Artie died a few years ago.

Louis was definitely a house painter but on the side did reproductions and my mother has a number has a number of these in the house I grew up in. I never heard that he sang, which is definitely interesting. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a photo of him, but in one I saw he looks exactly like you.

Irving was an accountant for most of his life, and worked on founding the Suffolk Federal Credit Union. His wife (my grandmother) was Sylvia who worked as a special ed teacher for many years. They lived in Long Island and in retirement alternated between living in Florida, Long Island and upstate New York. They had two children, Gale (my mother) and Andy, who’s Bar Mitzvah you probably attended.

I do believe we are related and look forward to hearing all about you and your siblings!

Dan

lmmiller <lmmiller@lmmiller.com> wrote:

Dan,

This is very interesting. I am copying Diana, Philip and Cynthia who may have some information that might help.

There are enough similarities in your information to make me feel that you have probably found the right person and connections. However, some of it is certainly news to me.

My father, Michael Miller, as we always knew him, never told us that his given name was Isidore. However, it would not surprise me given my father’s re-invention of himself. My father divorced himself from his family. In his later years he claimed that he didn’t even remember how many siblings he had or their names. He said that this was because of a squabble that occurred at the death of his mother. The details of it are not important and of course, we only heard his side of the story.

My father was an accomplished runner, competing with the NY Athletic Club and we have a good number of newspaper clippings with photos of him crossing the finish line. I also have a box of his medals. When he was a young man he left NY and moved to Cuba and taught, and coached track, at a private school. He became fluent in Spanish and developed a close affiliation with Latin people.

He then became and Arthur Murray dance instructor, met my mother who was Catholic, and married. This marrying a Catholic was a shock to both sides of the family and I am sure it contributed to distancing him from his family.

Diana and I both remember visiting his parents. I don’t remember his mother’s name. But, his father was definitely Louis. He was painter. My father often talked about what a skilled painter he was. I am talking about house painting. However, he also painted, copied actually, the oil paintings of the masters.

We were told that he was also a very fine singer and sang both in the synagogue and was hired to sing in Christian churches.

It is not clear to me whether it was my father’s parents or their parents, who emigrated from Lithuania (or was it Latvia?).

I remember going to my uncle’s son’s bar mitzvah while my father acted as the photographer for the event. I believe that was Irving. He was a professional photographer for most of his career.

Now, what is your relationship to Jason Katz? I thought Jason was Irving’s son. I am attaching an email that Jason sent to my mother and my sister forwarded to me. This might also be a clue to our connections.

One minor correction. My father was in WWII, not one. And, yes, he was in India and Burma as an Air Force photographer.

Congratulations on your detective work. If you agree that we have the right family connections, and if you send me material on this, I will add a section to our family blog, so others can Google the relevant names.

I hope my siblings will fill in any other information that may be helpful.

Best wishes,

Larry Miller

From: Dan Fingerman [mailto:danfingerman@yahoo.com]
Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2007 11:42 PM
To: LMMiller@lmmiller.com
Subject: Hi!

Hi:

I am doing some genealogical digging and stumbled upon your family blog. I believe (and forgive me if I’m incorrect) that we are distantly related.

My great-grandparents were Louis & Lena Miller. According to census records I have obtained had four children; Rose, Isidore, Aaron and Israel. My late grandfather was known as Irving despite his birth name being Israel. My family has remained in contact with many of Rose’s descendants; and late in my grandfather’s life he reconnected with Aaron, then known as Artie. My grandfather told me of a brother named Mickey who went to India during WWI; and with whom he had lost touch. I believe your father Michael is Isidore. The photo of your late father bears a remarkable resemblance to photos of my Grandfather later in his life. I also believe my mother (Gale) has a photo of Louis Miller that looks exactly like you.

Although I grew up on Long Island, I am a recent college graduate living in New York City. I decided to make use of my proximity to the City archives and have done some research there and have found old documents that trace our shared ancestry and wanted to introduce myself. I also wanted to see what you knew about our family tree, as I don’t really know much about your branch. I’d also imagine you may have some insight from your father about Louis & Lena.

I’ll wrap this up as I should get to bed, but I do hope to hear from you either way-

Dan

Here is Lang with his two nieces, Serena and Amira.

Amira has been eying everyone else’s food at the dinner table and feeling left out. Now she is enjoying her first taste of something that does not come directly from her mother.

We then went to their classroom and participated in some learning activities. Here he is with one of his teachers, then with his grandmother (Naysan’s mother) and then with me.

We had a great family and friends dinner at Layli and Gil’s house.Their huge living/dining area was perfect for the event. Click on the photos below to enlarge. We hope everyone else had a “thankful” Thanksgiving.