The Lincoln Brigade

I was pleased with the space you gave Lincoln vet Harry Randall ’37 in the last Reed, but I’m afraid you mixed up his Lincoln vet comrades. Bill Miller (William Newton Miller) was the only Oregon volunteer killed in Spain, but he was Randall’s roommate off campus, and never a Reedie. Randall recalls that Miller grew up on an Oregon farm and sounds nostalgic about their friendship, shared activities (and housing) in the ’30s, “when we sometimes lived on potatoes and black coffee, and chased odd jobs to pay the $5 we paid monthly for room rent, and often went cold and hungry for lack of a quarter for the gas meter.” Randall had to quit Reed after a year because his parents’ tuition money dried up, but Miller never attended.

—Mike Munk ’56

Portland, Oregon

Editor's Note: Sorry, we goofed!