‘He Overcame His Handicap and Lived Life’ : Memorial: Jeremy Miller, the 19-year-old quadriplegic who established a legal landmark and painted landscapes, was remembered lovingly at his funeral Monday.

During his brief life, 19-year-old Jeremy Prows Miller of La Habra established a legal landmark and painted landscapes. Both were difficult feats.

The landmark came in 1978 when Jeremy’s parents used a federal law to win him the right to attend regular school classes even though he had been a quadriplegic since being struck by a car when he was 3. He was the first in California to use the law, which requires “least restrictive access” for the handicapped.

The landscapes were the paintings and drawings he laboriously made, holding pens and brushes between his teeth. His paintings lined the hallway of the Fullerton church on Monday where a crowd of about 350, many of them former classmates at Sonora High School, attended his funeral. “It was hard for him to do it, but he loved art,” said his mother, Ella Miller.

Jeremy died Friday at Friendly Hills Regional Medical Center in La Habra after he had been found unconscious by his parents on Tuesday at their home. The hose to his respirator had become disconnected as he slept, and the emergency alarm failed to sound, his mother said.

For 16 years before his death, Jeremy had been unable to use his arms and legs. He breathed with the help of a battery-powered respirator he carried with him in his wheelchair. He had been hit by a car as he ran across the street near his home in 1974, when he was a toddler. The injuries almost killed him and severely damaged his spinal cord.

But those who recalled the young man on Monday, during the funeral at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Stake Center, said Jeremy laughed a lot, joked and loved to follow sports, especially the California Angels.

“Things were never dull with Jeremy,” said Bishop F. Chet Nelson, who conducted the services.

Said his father: “One of his crowning achievements, and one he was very proud of, was achieving the rank of Eagle Scout. . . . Whenever he set his mind to something, he never wavered.”

His father added that Jeremy’s battle to lead as normal a life as possible had led to many accomplishments, including the court ruling in March, 1978, that ordered La Habra City School District to allow the boy to continue regular classes with his first-grade schoolmates.

He had been removed from the regular first-grade class and moved to a library in February, 1978. Officials at Las Lomas School said Jeremy once had a breathing difficulty during class, which alarmed them. La Habra school district officials said he would be better off out of the regular classroom.

But the child and his parents disagreed. Ella and Glenn Miller successfully argued that their son needed to be in a normal classroom so he could develop normally both socially and intellectually. His case was handled by the Los Angeles-based Western Law Center for the Handicapped, which on Monday praised Jeremy as a trailblazer in legal efforts for better treatment of the handicapped.

“This young man was a pioneer and a role model for students with disabilities in California,” said Sande Buhai Pond, legal director of the center.

Jeremy’s accomplishments more than proved the merit of his being allowed to continue as a regular student, according to those who spoke about him at the funeral.

In an interview, Dan Jongeward, Jeremy’s first scoutmaster, said: “He was an amazingly normal boy. He went everywhere with us in scouting, and you tended to forget he was in a wheelchair. He could do everything with that wheelchair, even though he could only move it by using his chin.”

Sharon Wronka, an assistant principal at Sonora High School, told the funeral audience, “Jer just wanted to be a normal student. . . . He was optimistic, compassionate and humorous.”

Wronka added that Jeremy’s “greatest love and interest centered around art.” She recalled visiting him during one of his art classes and seeing him avidly at work, using his teeth to move a paintbrush over the canvas.

The assistant principal noted that Jeremy graduated last June from Sonora High after achieving many honors there, including being on the principal’s honor roll and named a student of the month. “The senior class cheered as he received his diploma,” Wronka recalled.

Then, in a solemn closing to her remembrances, Wronka said, “Thank you, Jeremy. . . . Understanding and determination were part of your big heart.”

His artworks ranged from a black-and-white drawing of a house during winter to boldly colored portraits of parrots and cardinals. A large commercial firm used two of his artworks as Christmas cards, his father said.

“We have his artwork here today because we believe his art will be lasting,” Miller said.

In addition to his parents, survivors include three brothers and a sister. Burial on Monday was at the Loma Vista Memorial Park in Fullerton.