More Information about Rhena Schweitzer Miller

Rhena with her parents, Helene Bresslau and Dr. Albert Schweitzer, and her 4 children (Catherine, Christiane, Monique and Philippe) in Maennedorf, Switzerland, 1948

Rhena Schweitzer Miller was born in Alsace and studied in Germany, France and Switzerland.  After having brought up four children, she became a laboratory technologist, and started to work for her father, Dr. Albert Schweitzer, taking charge of the laboratory of his hospital in Lambaréné, Gabon.  After his death, according to his wishes, she stayed on as administrator of the hospital until 1970.

During the Nigerian-Biafran conflict, Rhena took in a group of Ibo refugee children at Lambaréné, and cared for them for two years. When the time came in 1970 for them to return to their country, she went to Nigeria and helped with the repatriation of these children and others who had been flown out during the war to Gabon and the Ivory Coast.

Rhena in Gunsbach, France, 1959

At that time, Dr. David Miller of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) was also in Nigeria as the Chief Medical Advisor to the Nigerian Red Cross.  Dr. Miller had been in Lambaréné for six months in 1960, sent by the famous heart specialist Dr. Paul Dudley White to do a research project in cardiovascular diseases at the Schweitzer Hospital and in its vicinity.  Dr. Miller returned to Lambaréné when Dr. Schweitzer was seriously ill, and consulted in his care until his death in September 1965.

Rhena in Lambarene, Gabon, with the gorilla baby named Massa, who she raised (circa 1959)

After their work together in Nigeria, Rhena and David were married and lived near Atlanta in Georgia.  They worked together on nutritional surveys in India, Bangladesh, South Vietnam, Ethiopia, Egypt and Haiti.  From 1979 – 1983 they worked in the Yemen Arab Republic on projects of primary health care, and in 1984-85 in Pakistan for refugees from Afghanistan.  Their last work was 1987-88 in Haiti on a community development project in the slums of the city of Gonaives. 

Since her husband’s death, Rhena has lived in California.

Read Writings by Rhena Schweitzer Miller

Read more about our Endowed Fellowships:

Rhena Schweitzer Miller

A.C. Reid

Antje Lemke

Mark L. Wolf