Edwin D. Miller was born on Friday, March 12, 1875 in Newbury Township, Lagrange County, Indiana. He was the 10th child of 13 born to Daniel P. and Anna "Fanny" (Hershberger) Miller. When Ed was 8 years old, his family moved to Cass County, Missouri. They lived there for 4 years and then moved back to Indiana, where they lived about 8 years on a farm east of the Forks Church in Lagrange County.
In 1893 when he was 18, Ed went to the Amish-Mennonite settlement at Hopedale, Illinois with 4 other Indiana boys to find work. He there met Lydia Egli at a gathering of Hopedale Church youth at a member's farmhouse. The girls were discussing who would choose whom of the Indiana boys and Lydia said she wanted "the little fat one" and later she got him. In 1894 Ed was a hired man for Lydia's dad and they wanted to marry, but Joseph Egli objected. He later learned that instead of going to their rooms at bedtime, they would go to a pine grove to do their courting. Ed contracted typhoid fever that winter and when Lydia nursed him back to health, Joe gave their marriage his blessing.
They were married in the Hopedale Mennonite Church on Sunday, May 26, 1895. Joe then gave them a 40 acre farm near Boynton, where they first lived and then they traded it for a farm near Minier. Ed was homesick to see his family, so in 1900 they took a trip to Indiana. Then in 1901, they moved to a farm northwest of Shipshewana. It must have been a let down from the heavy Illinois soil to this sandy Indiana farm and they only stayed there one year. They next bought a farm near the Forks Mennonite Church in Newbury Township, Lagrange County and lived there until 1911. They were Forks church members the rest of their lives
Ed and Lydia then bought the farm just over the county line in Middlebury Township, Elkhart County, where the Little Elkhart River crosses County Road 18 and goes into the pasture in front of the house. They lived there until 1943, when they retired to a small house across CR 200S from the Townline Conservative Mennonite Church. Ed developed heart trouble, but helped Lydia all he could until he died of a heart attack in 1950. He was then buried in the Forest Grove Cemetery