Source: In Memory of Ida Miller Winger by Otho Winger (1944), pp. 44-47.

The following obituary was prepared by Mrs. Alice K. Ebey. She was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Daniel King, whose home was near the Miller home. Mrs. Ebey taught in Manchester College and with her husband, Rev. Adam Ebey, spent more than thirty years as a missionary in India.

One of God's best gifts is a friend whose love understands and abides. Such a friend was Ida May Winger to me and to many others scattered far and wide over the face of the earth. Our friendship began in childhood and throughout the years has grown deeper and richer. As children we were next-door neighbors. She and her sister, my sisters and I were inseparable companions until we had homes of our own many miles apart. We played together, we worshiped in the same church, we went to school together, and we together dreamed of the future. Then we roomed together at Mount Morris College. The friendship of these later years in the same town has been the best of all.

She was the second daughter of Amos and Sarah Cupp Miller and was born on a farm northwest of North Manchester August 31, 1875. A few years later the family moved near the West Manchester church where she grew to womanhood. She graduated from the North Manchester High School in 1893, taught two years in the Acme country school, and two years at Citronelle, Alabama. She was in Manchester College two years and taught two years in the business department.

When a young girl she united with the Church of the Brethren. She never lost her first love for the church, but grew more deeply interested in the work of Christ, locally and at large.

On July 24, 1902, she and Brother Otho Winger were united in marriage. Both of them attended Indiana University, Mrs. Winger taking course in art. In her home may be seen oil paintings and beautiful needlework made by her hands. They lived in Grant County several years, when Brother Winger was principal of schools at Sweetser and at Hope, Indiana.

They returned to North Manchester in 1907, when Brother Winger began his work in the college, first as a teacher, then as president. For twenty-seven years they lived on College Avenue. The labors and success of Brother Winter are well known, but the story of Sister Winger's self-forgetful work and willing sacrifice is known to only a few of her friends. She was closely associated with her husband in all his undertakings and accompanied him in many of his travels. They visited every state in the union and in 1927-28 made a trip around the world, visiting twenty-four different countries.

Besides her husband, there are left two sons, Robert of Lansing and Paul of Sturgis, Michigan, and four grandchildren, Vivian, Reva, Joe and Lou Ann. Two sisters, Mrs. A.M. Stine and Edith Miller, and a brother, A.L. Miller of Syracuse, survive.

During the past years Edith has lived in the Winger home and has been a source of great comfort and strength to them in these days of failing health.

Through all her pain and suffering, Sister Winger was patient, forgetting self and remembering others. The anointing service gave her comfort and courage. She died at the Bluffton hospital, January 29, 1944.

Funeral services were conducted by Bro. Roy Boaz, pastor of Walnut Street Church of the Brethren assisted by Rev. Smith of Fort Wayne. She was laid to rest in the Pleasant Hill cemetery near her childhood home.
--Alice K. Ebey, North Manchester, Indiana


Otho Winger (p. 47): Mother's body was laid to rest in the family section of the Pleasant Hill cemetery, near the West Manchester Church of the Brethren. There she rests near her parents and many other relatives and friends.