The headlines were sensational. “The Kiss That Ruined Her.” “Sin Confessed.” “God’s Law Broken.”

The married president of Lordsburg Business College was accused of carrying on a multiyear affair with an undergraduate who was then hired as his secretary.

The allegations surfaced in fall 1898. Adding to the embarrassment, this den of iniquity was an institution backed by a Christian sect, the Church of the Brethren. Commendably, congregants ousted Edmund A. Miller from his job and the church in spring 1899.

All this took place in Lordsburg, a name that seems especially ironic in this context. In 1917, the town rebranded itself as La Verne. Lordsburg Business College is today’s University of La Verne.

The scandal made national news but was soon buried. It got an airing last Monday in a presentation organized by the La Verne Historical Society. Some 60 of us flocked to hear it.

“Scandal really brings people out,” Sherry Best, the society’s president, told me with a chuckle.

George Keeler was among those listening intently. He teaches journalism at the university and had never heard the story.

“I should have known about it,” Keeler told me afterward. “I’ve been there 40 years. I was a student there. My gosh. How do you hide a secret like that?”

Historian Paul Spitzzeri gave the talk, which he titled “Romance of the Scarlet Letter.” It was based on a blog post he’d written about the scandal in 2019, abetted by more recent research. The circumstances, he said, constitute a late 19th- century “Me Too” story.

Showing us a photo of Miller, a handsome man with a penetrating gaze, Spitzzeri said contemporaries described Miller as having great personal magnetism.

Miller had already run into trouble in Virginia in 1889. As the 28-year-old president of a school for teachers, he was believed to have romanced the wife of a fellow professor who had been his mentor.

As with some modern university scandals, the college couldn’t bring itself to banish Miller because he was such a good fund-raiser. But in 1892, the Church of the Brethren moved him across the country to lead Lordsburg, another of its colleges.

Miller was a success there too, but again ran into problems. By fall 1898, rumors abounded that he was having an affair with Celia Overholtzer, 26, his secretary and a recent graduate.

Miller begged college trustees to let him remain until the end of the school year. Overholtzer had little to say initially, but by spring, after her mother’s death, she told all.

Miller had approached her after class and put his arm around her. Then, in the library, he kissed her.

“From then on he began to tell me how he loved me, and soon gained my affections and complete control over me,” Overholtzer said. “When I remonstrated and said it was wrong, he answered that it was the natural outgrowth of love and that if I loved him I would permit him to continue.”

Some things never change.

The Church of the Brethren, a German Baptist denomination, was known for its conservative dress and full-immersion baptisms. Outsiders irreverently called congregants “Dunkers” and the school a “Dunkers college.”

A church trial of sorts took place on the charges. Overholtzer’s confession was read to congregants and she stood to affirm it. By ballot, Miller was fired and expelled.

It’s a pleasant surprise to see that her account was believed. Adding credence was that her father, Samuel Overholtzer, was a prominent citrus grower in Covina and a founder of the college. He believed her.

When Miller returned to Lordsburg a month later to ask the congregation for a rehearing, they threatened to throw him out. Outdoors, he faced “a shower of eggs of bad odor and uncertain age,” the L.A. Times reported April 27.

Lordsburg Business College nearly failed. A March 1901 Times story was headlined “Dunker College’s Latest Sorrows” and decried “decadence at the school at Lordsburg.”

Parents naturally were reluctant to send their daughters to a school where they might be led astray by its president. The school had dwindled to 12 students and 10 faculty.

The school closed for a few months, reopening in December 1902 under W.C. Hanawalt, who successfully rebuilt its ranks and reputation.

Miller, meanwhile, became a successful attorney until his death in 1946 — more proof that there is little justice in the world.

Overholtzer did not fare as well. Sadly, that’s no surprise, either.

“She had a tough life,” Mary Madaris said. The 76-year-old drove from Lake Havasu, Arizona, for the presentation.

Celia Overholtzer was her grandmother.

Overholtzer saw the death of one child, the suicide of her husband after a business failure and a divorce from her malingering second husband.

The Church of the Brethren stood by her, finding her work as a nanny around Southern California for a succession of widowers, first in Hemet, later in Hollywood and Glendale. Due to poverty, her last years were spent with her daughter’s family in Covina. She died in 1976, one month before she would have turned 104.

Madaris and I spoke afterward. She loved the presentation. And she remembers her grandmother well as a positive, warm presence. Celia stayed devoted to the Brethren and taught Sunday school into her 90s.

She never spoke of the scandal. Madaris learned about it by chance while doing genealogical research at the University of La Verne, where a librarian tipped her off. It was news to her, and also to her mother, Celia’s daughter.

After learning the details, “she thought her mother was a victim. Which I think, too,” Madaris said.

“I feel she fell for him. She was young and vulnerable and he was charming. When she found out he wasn’t going to divorce his wife, she blew the whistle on him. In her confession,” Madaris said, “she couldn’t stand the guilt anymore.”

Best, the Historical Society’s president, told me the tragedy of the story resonates with her.

“What this tells me is, we are human. Every generation thinks they invented misbehavior and naughtiness. That’s not true. It goes back forever.”

dallen@scng.com, phone 909-483-9339.