Peggy Reiff Miller

Peggy Reiff Miller grew up on a small dairy farm in northwestern Illinois, went to a small country church, and attended a small high school, then a small church-related college before venturing out into the big, wide world. She applied her liberal arts education to a number of jobs and careers for 35 years before hitting her stride as the writer and caretaker of the seagoing cowboy history. 

Since that time, Peggy has passionately devoted over twenty years to the documentation and sharing of the little-known history of the seagoing cowboys and the related history of the Heifer Project, today’s Heifer International, to which she serves as historical consultant. She is the author of the children’s picture book The Seagoing Cowboy (Brethren Press, 2016) and is currently working on a history for adults of the early years of the Heifer Project.

Her original motivation for this work stemmed from a desire to learn what her grandfather may have experienced on his trip with a load of horses to Poland in 1946. She soon learned it was a larger history mostly hidden away in people’s minds, and drawers, and attics that needed to be preserved. She has traveled the country researching and speaking about this history. Her website and blog, www.seagoingcowboys.com, have brought her inquiries from as far away as Poland, Germany, Finland, Japan, Korea, and Canada for information to assist with projects from doctoral papers and books, to museum displays, to public TV documentaries. She has traveled to Poland, Germany, and Finland to conduct research and attend events related to her work. 

Peggy is a lifelong member of the Church of the Brethren, which founded the Heifer Project. She lives with her husband Rex in Englewood, Ohio. When not absorbed in her office, she enjoys reading, walking, playing the piano and accompanying soloists and choirs, and spending time and playing games with her married twin daughters, their husbands, and two grandsons.