Rhena Schweitzer Miller

Rhena Schweitzer Miller (January 14, 1919 – February 22, 2009) was an American humanitarian activist, the director of the hospital her father founded in west central Africa and a key organizer of the fellowship that bears his name. She was the only child of Helene Bresslau and Albert Schweitzer.

Life and activism In 1917, Albert Schweitzer and Helene Bresslau Schweitzer had been arrested as German citizens in French Equatorial Africa; the hospital that they had founded there in present-day Gabon in 1913 was closed and they were taken to a prison camp in France. Rhena Schweitzer was born in Strasbourg in Alsace-Lorraine in 1919 right before the territory's post-World War I return to French control following 45 years as part of Germany. With his family still in Europe, Dr. Schweitzer went back to Africa in 1924, with occasional visits from his daughter and wife over the following two decades. They lived in Atlanta and traveled around the world offering medical assistance in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Haiti, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Vietnam and Yemen. Robles and Miller created the "Reverence for Life Commendation" in 1990 to recognize humanitarian efforts performed in the spirit of Albert Schweitzer.

Rhena Schweitzer Miller died at age 90 on February 22, 2009 in Pacific Palisades, California, at the home of one of her daughters. She was survived by a son and three daughters from her first marriage, eight grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.