Dorothy L. Reiter Miller Bourbon

Dorothy Leona Reiter Miller Bourbon, 100, of Casper, Wyoming passed away Tuesday, September 30, 2025.

Dorothy Leona Reiter was born in Park Center, Nebraska May 3, 1925 to Ervie Elmer and Leona Beatrice (Slaight) Reiter joining brother, Edwin and followed by Dale, Opal, Donald, and James. Growing up, the family lived at several farms in central Nebraska. Dorothy excelled in both academics and sports as well as enjoying choir in junior high and high school. While in high school she studied teaching and bookkeeping. She graduated from Wheeler County High School in 1942.

Dorothy moved to Lincoln and shared and apartment with several girlfriends while working at Gooch’s Macaroni factory; they then moved to Omaha where Dorothy worked in the jewelry department at Kresge's Dime Store. Members. Dorothy wasn’t keen on teaching but when asked by members of the Wheeler County school board to come home and teach she took the test, passed with flying colors and was hired by the District 5 School Board to teach for $85 a month in 1944. Dorothy enjoyed teaching and taught a couple more years.

She met Stan Miller through friends. She moved to Pennsylvania to be with him. After a short time there, the couple moved back to Nebraska and then to Casper, Wyoming. Dorothy found work as a bookkeeper at Montgomery Ward. Stan and Dorothy married in 1947 and welcomed three children. While her children were babies Dorothy designed and patented a diaper and diaper holder that was sold around America. Dorothy also designed and started to get a patent for her Inventors Congress award-winning “Save-a-Drape.” Dorothy and Stan divorced in 1960. Dorothy admitted that “it was tough trying to raise 3 children,” but because they “loved each other… we won.” She was proud that her children made their own lives very successful.

Dorothy worked as a bookkeeper and payroll clerk at Memorial Hospital in Casper, and later for Rissler and McMurry Road Construction. She met Syd Bourbon in 1968, they married in 1969 and divorced in 1975. Dorothy started managing a 120-unit apartment complex in 1976 from which she retired after 25 years in March 2001.

Dorothy enjoyed vacationing and took cruises to the Bahamas, Hawaii, Alaska, and the Panama Canal. She began painting in 1990 and won 1st Prize and Judges Choice at the Central Wyoming Fair. She started making photo quilts and necktie quilts. She organized yearly “Reiter Reunions” with relatives from Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Texas, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, Nebraska, Wyoming, and Canada for which Dorothy made a quilt for raffle every year.

In 2012, at the age of 86, Dorothy wrote her memoirs detailing wagon accidents, riding horses and having to get through 8-12-foot snow drifts to get to grammar school, broken noses, historical events that shaped her and our country, her regrets and accomplishments. But what Dorothy’s “Life and Times” really shows is her love for her family - her parents, aunts and uncles, cousins, friends, neighbors, pupils, and especially her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and even great-great-grandchildren. She wrote, “Some things I did, endured, caused, and some that just happened in my lifetime - it may be of interest and may not - it was a part of my life.”

She was preceded in death by her parents; daughter, Jeanne Anne; and siblings, Edwin, Opal, Dale, and Donald.

Dorothy is survived by her son, James (Trish) Miller; daughter, Judy (Wayne) Strozzi; son-in-law, Richard Shain; grandchildren; great-grandchildren; brother, James (Linda) Reiter; and many nieces and nephews.

Dorothy’s funeral service is scheduled at 1:00 pm on Saturday, October 11, 2025 at Newcomer Funeral Home, 710 East Second Street, Casper, WY 82601. Followed by interment at Wyoming Memorial Gardens.

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