Doris Miller remembered for her Lake Stevens legacy

Published 10:29 pm Saturday, December 13, 2008

The Lake Stevens where Doris LaVon Paige Miller grew up exists now only in photographs, history books, museums and memories.

Miller was the granddaughter of John and Elida Lundeen, pioneers who settled at Lake Stevens and played a big role in its development. In Lake Stevens today, their family name lives on at Lundeen Park on the lake’s north shore, and on Lundeen Parkway, a major arterial.

Before these days of traffic and suburban homes, there was the lake. Miller’s parents, George and Helga (Lundeen) Paige and her paternal grandfather owned the historic Rucker home on Lake Stevens, where Doris grew up. She was an only child.

Her maternal grandparents owned Lundeen’s Park resort, a recreation destination for thousands of summer visitors. The resort had rental cabins, a swimming beach with a diving tower, a huge dance hall and a tavern, and a baseball stadium.

“It was one of the largest resorts in the Pacific Northwest, about 40 acres, and one of the largest dance halls,” said Jim Mitchell, 84, author of “Lake Stevens — My Town: Recollections of a Native Son.”

“She was a pretty brunette,” said Mitchell, recalling that Doris Paige was a girlhood friend of his older sister, Pauline. “They were best friends,” he said.

“The Lundeens built the semi-pro baseball stadium — we have pictures of it at the museum. It held a couple thousand people,” said Mitchell, who is involved with the Lake Stevens Historical Society and Museum.

Doris LaVon Paige Miller died Nov. 28 in Marysville, where she and her husband had moved when they left Lake Stevens. Born July 9, 1913, she was 95. She was preceded in death by Raymond Miller, her husband of more than 50 years.

She is survived by her son and daughter-in-law, Rod and Anne Miller of Honolulu, Hawaii; by her daughter and son-in-law Susan Miller Svanfeldt and Per Johan Svanfeldt of Belvedere, Calif.; and by her granddaughters, Jennifer Svanfeldt Bailliet, and Ulrika and Stephanie Svanfeldt.

George Paige, Doris’ father, had started the first bus service in Lake Stevens, the motorized Stageline. Susan Svanfeldt said her mother would ride along with him. Her family eventually moved to Lundeen’s Park resort and managed the family business.

As a teenager, Doris moved to Seattle to stay with her widowed Aunt Bertha Lundeen-Huss. She graduated from Roosevelt High School and attended the University of Washington. She had also caught the eye of Raymond Miller, who was 11 years her senior.

After they married, the couple moved back to the resort and helped manage Lundeen’s Park. Ray Miller taught high school and was a coach in Lake Stevens, and later taught in the Marysville School District.

Svanfelt and her brother laugh at family stories of their mother’s youth, when Elida Lundeen, who spoke only Swedish, and Doris’ other female elders would keep a close eye on her at the dance hall.

“She was a gorgeous woman,” Rod Miller said. “We always tell the story of great-grandma Lundeen watching her at those dances, with all those logging boys coming up to mother.”

Susan Svanfelt also grew up on the resort property, which had several year-round homes along with summer cabins.

“I had a thriving inner-tube business,” she said. “Every summer, we had Red Cross swimming lessons. There was one long dock that went out with an ‘L’ at the end. Rod and I grew up there.”

Rod Miller remembers big companies holding their annual picnics at the resort. “And always, Sunday afternoon baseball,” he said. “It was a great place to grow up.”

His family worked in the store and managed the cabins. “You could rent wool swimming suits, all full of moths,” he said. “Guys would come in from working all day, with sweaty clothes and boots that smelled. For 25 cents they could get a locker and go swimming.”

Later in her life, Doris Miller worked in an Everett office and then for a judge. She also looked after her elderly mother and uncles. “She looked after everybody, her mother and father, her aunt and her Uncle Art Lundeen,” he said.

She wasn’t a swimmer, but Doris Miller loved to go out in a rowboat and fish. “The silver trout and perch were great eating,” Rod Miller said.

Today’s Lundeen Park is only a portion of what was once the resort. Rod Miller said newcomers to Lake Stevens have no idea of the place it was.

“It’s all history,” he said.

Reporter Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlstein@heraldnet.com.