Named for Dorothea Miller (1847-1941), born Dorothea Grelck in Barmstedt, Germany and an Angeleno by 1874 if not earlier. (Her uncle John Grelck was a prominent local nurseryman.) Widowed at 29, in 1877 she married Jacob Miller (1830-1920), a marble carver also from Germany. After some years in the American South, Jacob Miller had moved to L.A. in 1862 and established his own marble works in 1869, carving everything from mantels to tombstones. The couple settled in Nichols Canyon in 1883 to raise their son and four daughters (plus Dorothea’s daughter from her first marriage) and grow exotic plants. They also owned a chunk of land around Sunset and La Cienega, hence Miller Drive, named on a 1925 tract that Dorothea co-owned with one Victor Fleming – apparently the same Victor Fleming (1889-1949) who would go on to direct Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz.
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