Carsten Miller, Ingeborg
Ingeborg Carsten Miller was born in Pomerania on the shores of the Baltic Sea. Ingeborg fled with her family from Soviet occupied East Germany in 1946 and settled in Hamburg, West Germany. After studying in Florence, Italy and Barcelona, Spain she returned to Germany to work for the US Information Service in Hamburg, Hannover, and Kiel. Married to an American Foreign Service Officer, she made her home in London, Paris, Bonn, and Seoul and in the Washington, D.C. area., where she taught German at the Foreign Service Institute.
Ingeborg was Vice President of the Federal Poets of Washington, D.C. from 1988-1990, and also editor of “The Federal Poet” literary magazine for three years. She instituted a series of many local poetry readings, including at the Sumner School Museum in Washington, D.C. She also organized the “Authors Round Table”, a writers group of the Association of American Foreign Service Women. Deeply influenced in her writing by nature and the spirit of Northern Germany, Ingeborg published several collections of her poems to reflect her time and travels from there including, NORDLICHTER (Northern Lights), and One Pomeranian in America. Her poems have been published in the Paris International Herald Tribune, The American Foreign Service Journal, and Trans-Lit, to name but a few. Ingeborg’s poems were also a regular feature in the local Beltsville News for many years. She greatly enjoyed reading her poetry aloud for audiences both locally and at conferences around the country. She was also an active member of the Society for German American Studies and the German Studies Association.
Ingeborg first studied art at the Accademia delle Belle Arti in Florence, Italy. She later specialized in oriental brush painting and studied with Professor Ming, in Seoul, Korea. A long-time member of the Sumi-e Society, a national oriental brush painting group, she has shown her paintings at exhibitions in Annapolis, Washington, D.C. Seoul, Bonn and Paris.
She also contributed numerous illustrations for the publications that she worked with over the years. A lifelong lover and supporter of all libraries, particularly in Montgomery and Prince George’s County, Maryland. She served as President of the Friends of the Beltsville library for many years and was instrumental in helping save libraries in PG County from closure. As chair and long-term member of the Fairland Library Advisory Committee, she was a leader in efforts to secure funding for the construction and establishment of Fairland-Burtonsville library. Ingeborg was remarkable in so many ways and will be sorely missed by her many friends around the world as well as her extended family: loving husband Bradford, her daughter Carina and son Carsten; her daughter-in-law Molly and son-in-law David, and, of course, her four grandsons Zachary, Simon, Max, and Ian.