W.A. Miner

W.A. Miner

September 20, 1920 - December 18, 2010

W.A. "Bill" Miner, 90 of Waco passed away on Saturday, December 18, 2010 at a local hospital after a short illness.

Services will be held 1 p.m. Monday, December 27, 2010 at OakCrest Funeral Home Chapel with Msgr. Mark Deering officiationg. Burial will be in Topeka, Kansas on Friday, Dec. 31, 2010. Visitation with the family will be 4 to 6 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 26, 2010 at OakCrest Funeral Home, 4520 Bosque Blvd. Waco, TX.

Bill started his railroad career with the Santa Fe Railroad in 1941 in Topeka, KS as Stenographer and married his college sweetheart, Louise Wiggins. He was promoted numerous times and transferred to positions in Colorado Springs, CO, El Paso, TX back to El Paso after two and a half years with the U.S. Army in World War II, then to Topeka again and then on to Chicago as Assistant General Freight Agent, specializing in Freight Rates. In 1967, with the backing of the Santa Fe, he left Santa Fe to become a member of The Standing Rate Committee of The Transcontinental Freight Bureau, Western Railroad Association in Chicago from which position he retired in 1982. Bill studied Interstate Commerce Law as it related to the railroads and was granted License to practice before The Interstate Commerce Commission and also became a Certified member of The American Society of Traffic and Transportation. Because of his knowledge of the Law and his expertise in Freight Rates, he taught Traffic and Transportation courses in El Paso and Topeka and at The College of Advanced Traffic in Chicago. He was an active member of the Traffic Club of Chicago.

His hobbies included Genealogy, tracing his own Miner family back to the immigrant together with over 100 allied lines of ancestors. He was the first President of The Thomas Minor Society and its Director of Records for many years. Bill also traced his mother's and first wife's families and his second wife's Ewing family back to the immigrants.

He was an avid flower gardener and always had the best flowers in the neighborhood. After retirement, he and his first wife, Mimi Louise, moved to Natchitoches, LA where she died in 1984. Bill later married a long-time friend, Dorothy "Dot" Ewing , and relocated in Waco where she died October 1, 2004.

He leaves us to join his parents, Charles Avery and Ida Roudebush Miner, his brothers Charles and Milford Miner, both of his beloved wives, Mimi Louise and Dorothy, and his sons Wendel Avery "Wendy" Miner and Joseph Miner, who preceded him in death. He will be sorely missed.

Bill is survived by his daughters, Tamara Haygood of Houston and Michelle Louise Miner of Denham Springs, LA; son, Gregory Lawrence Miner and wife, Marvena of League City; grandchildren, Anya, Costa and Taylor Miner; step-daughter, Gwen Hodges and husband, Wayne of Georgetown; step-sons, Patrick Allen Ewing and wife, Sherri of Fort Worth and Michael R. Ewing; step-grandchildren, Diann Hodges, David Hodges and wife, Elizabeth; step-great-grandchildren, Meagan, Conner and Lauren; sister-in-law, Frieda Miner of Mission, KS and many nieces, nephews and friends at Ridgecrest Retirement Center and elsewhere.