Patricia Z. Miller, 78, who helped her husband found Atlantic Self Storage, a household and business storage company in Northern Virginia, died Oct. 24 at Fauquier Hospital in Warrenton.

She had complications from a stroke, said Ann Winston, her daughter and the company’s vice president.

Patricia Josephine Zales was born in Kenosha, Wis. She received a bachelor’s degree in home economics from Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., in 1954 and taught elementary school in Norfolk and Boston for several years before settling in the Washington area in 1964.

In the 1960s and 1970s, she did model-home interior design work for Miller and Smith, a home-building firm her husband cofounded. She helped him open Atlantic Self Storage in the early 1980s and worked as the company’s marketing manager until her retirement in 2000.

Mrs. Miller lived in Bethesda and McLean before moving to Warrenton in 1993. She belonged to Warrenton Presbyterian Church, the Francis Fauquier Garden Club and a book club in Warrenton.

Her husband of 49 years, David H. Miller, died in 2004. Survivors include three children, Ann Winston of McLean, Beth Bartholomew of Southlake, Tex., and Eric Miller, the president of Atlantic Self Storage, of Warrenton; two sisters; and six grandchildren.

(via Washington Post)