Experience of Being an Orphan Inspires Longtime Mount St. John Benefactor
By Mary Chalupsky
Four County Catholics, 2005
Correspondent
DEEP RIVER – Jimmy Miller is a man with a mission.
The reason is because the annual dinner which carries his name raises funds for two homes for troubled children – one of which was his home as a small boy.
The memories still run deep.
In fact, last October, when the Jimmy Miller Dinner, which he has hosted for at least 25 years, raised $80,000 for Mount Saint John Home and School for Boys in Deep River and the St. Francis Home for Children in New Haven , he was already thinking about more ways to help.
That's because Jimmy was raised by the Sisters of Mercy at St. Francis. Even after he left, he never failed to return every Christmas to spend the holiday with children and, his friend, former mother superior, Sister Helen Margaret Gormally, now 97, who lives in West Hartford .
“I took whatever money I had, and I spent Christmas Eve there,” he said, reflecting on the memories. “I would stand at the door and watch the cars pull up. Someone would jump out with a present, while the other person waited in the car with the motor running. They didn't stay.”
But Jimmy did. And he understood, probably better than anyone, the pain and the aloneness symbolized by the running engines.
“Catholic Charities took me in 1927 and estimated my age as seven months,” he said. “I was left abandoned in the hospital. I guess when they found me I was suffering from malnutrition and pneumonia. I was John Doe.”
To this day, he doesn't know his birth date, and guesses that because his parents probably couldn't afford to raise a baby, they did what they thought best by leaving him in the hospital.
During his early life, he was in and out of foster homes before being adopted by James and Mary Miller. But because of family difficulties including the Depression, he continued to be in and out of St. Francis.
“I had nobody out there. So my feelings are 100 percent for Saint Francis and Mount Saint John ,” he said.
“It's one of the reasons that I support the institutions,” Jimmy said. “I think that my memories there were always of a good nature. I have pleasant memories of those years. It's not like the kids today who are rejected.”
Jimmy differentiates his experience of being abandoned because of economic reasons, to kids today who are emotionally rejected by parents suffering from modern ills of abuse or chemical addiction.
“There's nothing harder to get over than rejection,” he said.
To this day, Jimmy remains unsure of some memories, since most of the details come from records supplied by lawyers.
But about age 13, he returned to live with Mr. Miller, who had divorced and remarried. He attended Betsy Ross Elementary School and Fair Haven Junior High School . He entered the Navy Sea Bees during World War II, serving in the Pacific Theatre.
Taking advantage of the G.I. Bill of Rights that gave him $20 a week, he lived in the YMCA and worked for a while on the railroad before learning to become a hairdresser.
He studied in New York and Paris ; and worked for a time in New York , before opening the Princess Academy of Hairdressing in New Haven . It was the first hairdressing school that offered an exchange program with other countries as an incentive.
He went on to open 27 other beauty salons in Connecticut, employing 120 hairdressers at its peak, before selling off all salons except one that remains today in Milford. He also started a swimming pool business, installing Gunnite pools, that he later sold.
Years ago, the mother superior from St. Francis called him one day and said, “Jimmy, I'm going to build a school and I need your help,” he recalled.
“She knew we needed a school because when you're a kid on a (school) bus that says orphanage, you've got to get off fighting,” he said. “Kids are cruel.
“So I said to myself, where the heck am I going to get that kind of money?
“At the time, my best friend in New York was Frank Sinatra's friend, Jilly Rizzo. So I said to him, ‘tell Frank that the school at this orphanage of mine is going to be named after him' (St. Francis) – which of course was a lie.
“Couple weeks later, I had to meet my friend, Robert Ludlum; and Frank was there. He said, ‘Hey, is that true about that orphanage in Connecticut ?'
“I said, ‘Yeah. They're trying to build a school.'”
That's the last Jimmy heard, until one day the Mother Superior called and said, “God came down today in the form of Frank Sinatra. I said, ‘I told a lie.' But she said, ‘God will forgive you.'”
“Today, you'll see a plaque in memory and in honor of Frank Sinatra,” he said. “I never asked how much he gave, and I didn't want to know. Until too long age, he gave for years after that. They don't tell you that, of course; and I don't ask.”
The school was opened in 1962.
But his pride today is the Jimmy Miller Dinner. It started small with a group of 50 to 70 of his friends 25 years ago. But after he expanded it about four years ago and moved it to a larger restaurant, the dinner netted $52,000 in 2002 and $75,000 in 2003.
Last year, more than 600 men, including State Attorney General, Richard Blumenthal and Auxiliary Bishop Peter Rosazza, came for the dinner that Jimmy underwrites. A basket is left on the table for donations.
“All the money goes for the children,” he said. “We have no administrative costs.”
His goal this year? $100,000.
“Jimmy is generous to a fault,” said Bishop Rosazza. “He pays for the whole meal. Every cent is divided between the two facilities.
“He is a man who did not forget this past,” Bishop Rosazza said. “Some people would reject that and not want to talk about it. But Jimmy remembers, and his memory stirs up compassion in his heart; and he acts on that. He remembers, and he wants to make a contribution to a place that was there for him in his toughest moments.”
Jimmy, whose wife died two years ago, has a son, James Jr., and three grandchildren, all who live next door to him in Oxford .
In June, Mount Saint John dedicated several recreational rooms to Jimmy in recognition of his contributions over the years.
“I do it because I must,” said Jimmy, of his fundraising efforts.
I owe a whole lot to Catholic Charities,” he added, in a modest, soft-spoken tone. “There's been less money in the last few years. I'm just trying to pick up the slack a little bit.”
