We applaud an elderly person who wants to become a teacher, but we are concerned about the education of the headline writer who referred to the 76-year-old as an octogenarian.
From the Arizona Daily Star, Tuesday, August 22, 1916:
Still Young at 76, Man Takes Teachers Exams
Jasper Miller, Octogenarian, Would Instruct Young Idea in Arizona
If Jasper Miller of Pantano succeeds in passing the regular teacher’s examination which is being held here, he will start to teach at the Rincon school September 18 as the oldest instructor in the state. He is seventy-six years of age, but mentally as alert and vigorous as he was when young.
“I did all the problems in arithmetic but one,” Miller stated yesterday, “but I got caught on one which asked how big a circle could be cut from a piece of paper of a certain dimension. And it was the easiest of all. I missed two words in my spelling list that I should have gotten right. One was “Hygiene” and the other was “synonym.” I hope to get through my examinations tomorrow though as well as I did today and then I will get my school at Rincon, six months at $85 a month.”
Miller taught in earlier life for 27 years, although he did not start his own schooling until 32 years old. At an advanced age he entered a business college in Portland to “brush up” on business subjects, he says.
Miller was the central figure in a unique news story published in The Star about two years ago, when he came to Tucson from Medford. A clairvoyant told him that he would meet in Tucson a woman named Julia Gardener who would become his wife. Incidentally she described in detail his homestead at Pantano where he expected to settle on his arrival in Tucson.
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We couldn’t resist looking up the previous article, which ran in the Star Friday, March 26, 1915:
Venerable Lothario Is Seeking Blonde Bride
Is Miss Lula Jerdan in or about Tucson and place, and if she is will she please speak out and make herself known?
The absolute necessity for Mill Lula Jerdan’s speaking out in meeting and telling who she is, where she is and how she is, is the interesting fact that the said Miss Lula Jerdan has been spotted by a spirit medium of Medford, Ore., who has just received a spirit gram from the dark unknown, as the future sold mate and help mate of Jasper Miller, late of that city, a rancher, school teacher and philosopher. Mr. Miller arrived Wednesday morning in Tucson on his quest for the unknown and elusive Miss Lula Jerdan, and if she is here in Tucson, he would be pleased to have her announce the fact.
“I don’t know much about the matter,” Miller said yesterday. “I never saw the lady and I don’t really know that she actually exists, but the medium who read my palm and gave me a spirit message described her as being about forty and handsome. That is all I know about the matter, but the medium gave an almost exact description of my homestead of the Pantano that I purchased from Mrs. G. F. Rinehart, which seemed to me very strange. She also told me a number of things about myself that were absolutely true.
Quest Leads To Tucson.
Miller is 74, but he doesn’t look a day over 50 and is a good looking and most intelligent gentleman. He has been one winter in Tucson during which time he purchased the relinquishment from Mrs. Rinehart. He might not have come back again, but the prediction of the spiritualist that he would meet his soul mate in Tucson proved the lure that sent him back to Tucson.
“Did I meet her through a matrimonial agency?” Miller exclaimed yesterday in answer to a question. “Not much, this is something quite different, having a medium tell you the name of the person you are going to marry and yet not know her.”
However, Miller does not deny that he has at one time or another actually corresponded with ladies who were anxious to be led up to the altar. At one time last winter he had received 27 different offers of marriage from separate widows who wanted to marry him. But, as he says, the present problem is something different.
The Medford Sun of March 18 has the following top say about the quest of Miller for his unknown bride, only they don’t have the name of the mysterious fair one just right:
Winged at Last.
“Professor Jasper Newtown Miller, the venerable Lothario of the Rogue River valley, is about to be married. After eluding capricious Cupid for a decade, after refusing 27 separate offers of marriage from lonely widows with means, Jasper has at last succumbed. The marriage will occur in May and the young lady’s name Lena Lemonah—a Creole beauty from the sunny South.
“The Ponce De Leon of Perpetual Romance has never met the lady not seen her picture. She is reported to have money, is a blonde, and younger than the professor—that is to say she is not yet 74—but aside from that nothing is known.
“But the marriage is to occur whether Jasper wishes it or not for a medium, a reader of palms and cards, in Medford has so decreed. There is no dodging it. The professor is reconciled, but not enthused. He took the train for Tucson yesterday to which place he expects his fate to follow him.”
Miller was in the city with his son yesterday and purchased supplies for the ranch where he will live awhile. He has high hopes of finding Miss Lula Jerdan, for as he says: “The medium was right about everything else, why shouldn’t she be right about this.”
The best our research can tell us is that Miss “Right” never made it to Miller’s doorstep. We are amused that the Star noted the incorrect name of the bride in the Medford newspaper. Less than two years later, Miss Lula Jerdan’s name had become Julia Gardener in the pages of the Star.
