Olivia Walters Miller, nurse-practitioner

Olivia Walters Miller worked after high school as a waitress and cosmetologist, as well as a dealer at casinos in Atlantic City, Connecticut, and Michigan. Then, in the year she turned 31, she earned her nursing degree.

"She tried finding her niche, and then she found her passion," daughter Onya said.

Mrs. Miller, 43, of Willingboro, a nurse-practitioner there, died Sunday, June 19, of complications from a stroke in May 2016.

Mrs. Miller died after a week at Levine & Dickson Hospice House in Charlotte, N.C., her daughter said. She had moved earlier this year to Fayetteville, N.C., to be near a brother, Stencil, and his family.

Mrs. Miller earned a bachelor's degree in nursing at the Chattanooga campus of the University of Tennessee in 2003.

In 2010, she worked as a volunteer nurse in Haiti, following the earthquakes there. On the same trip, she also worked as a volunteer in the neighboring Dominican Republic.

In 2013, she earned a master's at Rutgers University School of Nursing in Newark.

While working at the Willingboro office of Lourdes Medical Associates in 2014, she suffered a mild stroke.

After a month of recuperation, she returned to Lourdes in June 2014, her daughter said, but suffered a major stroke in June 2015 and had to retire. Her third stroke occurred in May.

Born in Willingboro, Mrs. Miller graduated from Willingboro High School in 1990 and played for the Willingboro Soccer Association before and into high school. She was a goalie on her school team, her daughter said.

After beginning her nursing career in Tennessee, Mrs. Miller worked as a "travel nurse," her daughter said, assigned to medical centers "from Freehold up to Newark," and later in South Jersey.

For a few years before she earned her master's, she also was an emergency room nurse at Capital Health Regional Medical Center in Trenton.

Karen Burroughs, a fellow emergency-room nurse there, recalled that "she was extraordinarily efficient, compassionate, caring."

Mrs. Miller also enjoyed her work as a travel nurse, Burroughs said, "because it gave you a different perspective, a different patient population."

Mrs. Miller was a founding member of We Love Boro, a civic organization promoting the quality of life in Willingboro.

She was a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, for which she was health committee chairman. She was a member of the Kingdom Church of New Jersey.

Besides her daughter, Mrs. Miller is survived by her mother, Eloise Walters; daughter Rochelle; sons David II and Emmett King IV; a brother; a sister; and her former husband, David.

A viewing was set from 10 to 11 a.m. Wednesday, June 29, at Kingdom Church, 1005 Whitehead Rd., Ewing, N.J. 08638, before an 11 a.m. funeral, with interment in Lakeview Memorial Park, Cinnaminson.

Donations may be sent to the church at the above location.

Condolences may be offered to the family at wrwoodyfuneralhome.com.

wnaedele@phillynews.com

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