Woman Finds Happiness in PV Home

Editor's note: This is the final installment in a series on Rancho Palos Verdes resident Margo Miller. Read the first .

Margo Miller, worked hard to find happiness and a purpose in Rancho Palos Verdes.

"When I first came to America, I was very unhappy," Miller said. "My Yugoslavian-American husband brought me into the very proud and purist Yugoslavian community in San Pedro and they were not very willing to accept me."

Shortly after her son, Chris, was born, she left her husband behind and forged on in a country she knew little about.

At first, Miller had difficulty finding a job while raising a child on her own, but she was able to overcome the obstacles and put her past secretarial skills to work.

She landed a job working for the Marx Brothers as a secretary at their tool company. After a few years, she moved on from the Marx brothers to work as a secretary at a law office where she met her second and current husband.

Shortly after she was married, she and her husband found a plot of land in Rancho Palos Verdes and began building. When she came to RPV in 1958, Palos Verdes Drive East was just a country road.  RPV was much like a Norman Rockwell painting, Miller remembers.

"There would always be an ice cream truck parked alongside the road where people would stop and buy a treat," she said. 

She remembers when she first saw the landscapes that would become her home.

“There were literally rolling hills and they were so green and beautiful," Miller said. "The countryside was uncluttered because there weren’t any condos or homes on the hills.”

Miller and her husband moved into their newly built house, one of the first houses built along Palos Verdes Drive East, in 1960.

Not only did Miller have a new home, she acquired a new hobby as well—horse racing. She still takes her hobby seriously and educates herself on new training methods, visits thoroughbred sales in Kentucky and is even a member of the Turf Club.

"I love racing horses. I own "Ultimate Pleasure," a well-decorated race horse, and I've had over 50 horses since the 1970’s," she said.

Miller is currently awaiting the birth of a new foal. 

Miller's goal in life is to squeeze as much as she can into every single day and it seems she has succeeded, accomplishing more in a decade than most individuals could hope for in a lifetime. She spends her time at the race track, traveling the world, taking her labrador "Gem" for walks along the cliffs and playing tennis with friends at the Elks Club.

Looking back at her life, Miller regrets nothing. She is happy and healthy and she loves her son, her husband, her horses and her dog.

“I believe that you learn from your experiences," Miller said. "It’s those experiences that made me who I am today."