Evelyn Maye Johnson Miles

Devoted wife and loving mother, Evelyn Maye Johnson Miles went to be with the Lord on August 18, 2011 at Lynchburg General Hospital.  She is survived by her husband Roy Chester, son Daniel, brother Robert Johnson of Cincinnati, and his 3 daughters.  She is preceded in death by her son Robert Chester Miles.

Evelyn was born in Miles City, Montana on July 26, 1926, and spent her first four years living in a sod-roofed house on a ranch by the Platte River with her parents Ben and Helen Johnson.  In 1929, they moved to Hutchinson, Kansas, where she graduated with a degree in music from Hutchinson Junior College.  There she met Chester at a U. S. O. during World War II, and married in 1947.  An alto soloist in chorus, choir and opera, she was very active in the music community while living in several locations across the country during Chester\"™s service in the Air Force.  In 1964, they settled at his boyhood home in the Forest area.  A very active member of the United Methodist Women\"™s Organization at Court Street United Methodist Church, she sang in the choir for 30 years.  She also sang in many productions of the Lynchburg Fine Arts Center chorus, most notably in Handel\"™s Messiah.  She also taught piano and voice lessons, and was an elementary school teacher at T. C. Miller School and at New London Academy.  A member of the Lynchburg Women\"™s Club and the Piedmont Poetry Society, her works were published in the 1985 & 1993 editions of the Poetry Society of Virginia\"™s Anthology of Poems.

Bold in spirit yet kind in heart, she was admired and loved.  She had a brilliant and creative mind, and excelled in everything she pursued.  She conveyed God\"™s lesson of love and forgiveness to her family, as she truly loved unconditionally as wife and mother.  She sang from the heart as a servant of God.  Compassionate to the disadvantaged, she contributed for many years to charitable organizations such as the Lynchburg Food Bank, St. Jude\"™s Hospital, and others.

Much gratitude is due to loving family members and friends and to Mable Smith, her personal caregiver who cared for her during the brief period (for which we are grateful to God), following her fatal stroke, and for the exceptionally professional and loving care given her by the good people on the staff of the SICU and 4th floor of the East tower at Lynchburg General. In lieu of flowers, please send donations to Court Street United Methodist Church in Lynchburg, Va.

Tharp Funeral Home, Lynchburg, 434-237-9424, www.obituaries.tharpfuneralhome.com.