The Owner

Rosemary E. Reed Miller first opened Toast and Strawberries on 'R' Street at Connecticut Ave., NW in 1966 and moved around the corner in 1995. 1966 was a tough year to open a business in downtown Washington...for an African American woman, it was an act of courage.

Through hard work, determination, and creativity, she and the people who came into the 'World of Toast' shaped the store into a very unique gift and fashion apparel shop. Over the years, Toast has served a true cross-section of this metropolitan area - and because Toast is located in the international Dupont Circle area - Toast serves literally the world.

Rosemary graduated from Temple University in Philadelphia with an A. B. in history and anthropology. Her focus was on the emerging countries in Africa. "I didn't get the graduate funding to study in Africa, so I thought I could do work on ‘New World Africans.’ I knew people in Jamaica. I thought I could study there. I ended up writing for newspapers there and in the States. I wrote for Women's Wear Daily, Fairchild Publications, The Miami Herald, The Miami News, The Amsterdam News, and for the Daily Gleaner [in Jamaica]. She also started designing and selling clothing and accessories, which was sold to various small stores and department stores.

Rosemary has been featured in articles in : The Washington Post, The Washington Star, The Afro-American, the Swedish journal, Dagen Nyeter and in such periodicals as Black Enterprise, Essence, The Washingtonian, Ms. Magazine, Glamour, Encore, and The Washington View.

You can download her most recent article for the Washington Post here. ::

Reed Miller, widow of Paul E. Miller, Dean of Howard University Law School. has two children: Paul D. and Sabrina E. Miller-Ford.

Checkout Paul's entertainment career at the following web sites:

• DJSPOOKY that subliminal kid (http://www.djspooky.com)
• DJ Spooky - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DJ_Spooky)

Toast & Strawerries Photo Gallery - [ click here ]