Weston — Frieda T. Miller, 88, of Peabody, a former longtime resident of Swampscott, died after a long illness on Sunday, March 10, 2019 at Wingate Rehabilitation Center in Weston.
Born and raised in the Bronx, New York City, she was the daughter of the late William and Esther (Hershkowitz) Tambor. Her first husband, Jacob Katz, died of a sudden heart attack in 1959. Her second marriage was to M. Murray Miller, a Salem native who died in 2006.
Ms. Miller graduated from James Monroe High School in 1948, and earned a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in education from Hunter College. In 1953 she met Jacob Katz in New York City and moved with him to the Brighton section of his native Boston. In 1962 she married M. Murray Miller and moved with him to Swampscott. Her marriage to him ended in 1996, after which she moved to Peabody for the remaining years of her life.
Her professional career began as an elementary school teacher. In 1974 she went to work for Dr. Yitzhak Bakal, a Marblehead psychologist and former Assistant Commissioner in charge of institutions for delinquent youth for the Massachusetts Department of Youth Services. Bakal was one of the architects of the reform that steered the transition of the old system of punitive “reform schools” and other institutions for juvenile offenders to decentralized, community-based alternatives. Massachusetts was the first state to embrace this deinstitutionalization.
Bakal started a non-profit with one state contract and after hiring Ms. Miller, they worked together to build Northeastern Family Institute (NFI), which later became North American Family Institute (NAFI), a large human service agency with dozens of programs for adults, adolescents and youth, operating in nine states.
Ms. Miller retired as Assistant Director of NFI in 1996. In recognition of her longtime leadership and service, a residential treatment program in Bangor, Maine, Miller Terraces, was named after her.
Throughout her life, Ms. Miller was socially and politically active, contributing to numerous liberal advocacy organizations that addressed issues of racial justice and feminism. She was a member of the League of Women Voters and a long-time supporter of the Salem-based Healing Abuse Working for Change (HAWC). She wrote numerous letters to the editor in local North Shore newspapers, many of which chided journalists and politicians for overt and subtle displays of sexism and other forms of bigotry.
In her later years she enjoyed the company of family and friends, and watching her daughter Janet play competitive softball and baseball.
Ms. Miller is survived by her sister Florence T. Polatnick of Boynton Beach, Fla., and her twin sister Carolyn Sax of Mission Viejo, Calif.; her three children, Julie Katz of Somerville, Jackson Katz and his wife Shelley Eriksen of Boston, and Janet Miller of Wakefield, as well as two step-children, Douglas Miller and his wife Rita of Orange, Conn., and Carol Miller of Savannah, Georgia; her grandchildren Dan, Eddie, Raysha and her beloved Judah, and great grandchildren Nathan, Gabriel, Coco, Zoe, and Izzy; her nieces and nephews Rivka Polatnick, Alan Nelson and Eddie Sax, several grand nieces and nephews, and her extraordinarily devoted caregivers Jackie Asiimwe and Rachel Musenge.
Service information: a private memorial service will be held. To share condolences and memories online, please visit www.legacy.com. Donations in Ms. Miller’s memory can be made to HAWC at www.hawcdv.org or by mail at 27 Congress St., Suite 204, Salem, MA 01970.
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