Mark Vehring Miller

PFC in 603rd Engineer Camouflage Bn : HQ & Service Co

Military occupational specialty: 121 (utility repairman)

ASN#31339418

Born 1923 in VT, Died 2013

Artist

County of residence at enlistment: Windsor County, VT

Other residence(s): Boston, MA; Brooklyn, NY; Los Angeles, CA; Arroyo Grande, CA

United States Army, European Theatre of Operations

Occupation before the war: occupations of manufacture of automobiles

College education before the war: School of Practical Arts

College education after the war: Art Institute of Boston

Notes: WWII Army enlistment record lists 4 years of high school

Source: 603rd roster from Seymour Nussenbaum's scrapbook, June 1943; Unit Shipment 10143-B, 23d HQ, from le Havre 23 June 1945; militaryyearbookproject.org/references/old-mos-codes/wwii-era/army...photo from 1941 high school yearbook

Mark Miller was born on March 16, 1923 in White River Junction, Vermont; he was the younger of two sons. He graduated from high school there in 1941, where his yearbook described him as "talented in the fields of art and dramatics" and quoted him as saying "I love to paint the likenesses of the fairer sex."

After high school he studied at the School of Practical Arts in Boston (now the College of Art and Design at Lesley University in Cambridge, MA). He also practiced his art during several summers in Rockport, MA, where he either worked for or studied with Harold Rotenberg, a prominent member of the Rockport and Cape Ann art colony.

He filled out his draft card in the summer of 1942, when he was working/studying with Rotenberg. But he went back to the School of Practical Arts that fall. He enlisted in the Army on April 26, 1943, where his work is listed as "occupations in manufacture of automobiles." This was likely a part-time or summer job, since newspaper articles show he was still studying in Boston in January, 1943.

Newspaper articles follow him through his presence at Fort Meade in October 1943, his promotion from PVT to PFC around that same time, his move to Camp Forrest in January, 1944, his arrival in England in the spring of 1944. his return from "overseas duty in France and Germany" for a 30-day furlough with his family in the summer of 1945, and his presence at Camp Shelby in Mississippi in November, 1945, right before his release from the Army.

According to newspaper articles he accepted a job in Boston in January, 1946, but was back in White River Junction a couple of months later, convalescing from an unnamed illness. He spent the summer of 1946 in Rockport.

He was living in Boston in 1949, and in Brooklyn during the 1950s. In the spring of 1956 he sailed to and from France for a 2 1/2 month stay.

He had moved to Los Angeles, CA by 1962, where he lived in the Hollywood Hills in the 1970s. He worked as a self-described "clothier," working with costumes and clothing actors for films.

He relocated to Arroyo Grande, CA in about 1982, where he and his long-time partner, Jim Cunningham, operated a small but well-reviewed B&B, where they hosted many of the celebrities Mark had worked with in Hollywood.

He died in Arroyo Grande on November 20, 2013.