Webb Miller worked for the United Press news service for nearly a quarter of a century--most notably as a foreign correspondent. He covered wars and great world social changes from the punitive expedition against Pancho Villa to the early months of World War II. He was the first correspondent to report the actual beginning of the 1935 Italian campaign in Ethiopia. He believed in firsthand reporting wherever there was action, and he was nominated three times for the Pulitzer Prize in journalism.

Webster Miller was born 10 February 1892 on a run-down tenant farm outside Pokagon, five miles from Dowagiac, in the southwest corner of Michigan. He was the oldest of the five surviving children of Jacob H. and Charlotte Alexander Miller. His family lived on different farms in that general area as he was growing up, and he yearned for a way of life that would provide more excitement than...