Tombstone Tuesday - Vera Miller Grant

Vera Miller Grant was the second oldest child of Colquitt and Amanda Miller.

Vera Miller Grant

1902-1977

"Love Lives on in God's Care"

New Hope Methodist Church Cemetery

New Hope, Washington County, Florida

Tombstone Tuesday - Warren H. Miller and Thelma Tittle Miller

Warren H. Miller was the oldest child of  Colquitt and Amanda Miller.  In 1985, he was buried next to his wife to whom he had been married over 60 years and who passed away about 10 years prior to him.  Warren and Thelma were my grandparents and the parents of my mother, Mary Kathaleen in addition to Warren H. Miller, Jr., and Dorothy Louise Miller.

Miller

Warren H. Miller Sr.

Sept. 30, 1899

Oct. 7 1995

Married

Mar 14, 1923

Thelma T. Miller

Aug. 22, 1904

Nov. 10, 1985

Gone But Not Forgotten

Tombstone Tuesday: Mary Amanda Crosson Miller

Last week's Tombstone Tuesday was Edgar Colquitt Miller.  This week I'm featuring his wife:  Mary Amanda (Crosson) Miller.

Mother
Mary Amanda Miller
Born June 28, 1882
Died Oct. 15, 1968
"Gone to Rest"

Location:  New Hope Methodist Church Cemetery, New Hope, Washington County, Florida

Unfortunately, I have no memories of my great grandmother except during the viewing prior to her funeral.  I was 9 at the time.  If any family members remember, please leave a comment about your memories.

Tombstone Tuesday: Edgar Colquitt Miller - Woodmen of the World Memorial

I've always been curious about my great grandfather's tombstone pictured to the right.

Google is amazing!! The Woodmen of the World was described as a fraternal benefit society -- huh?  Is that a fancy name for insurance company?  

Yep!!  Today, it's an insurance/financial services company.

One of the benefits of WOW, upon a member's death, was to provide $100 to the member's widow along with a headstone to be inscribed with the WOW insignia.  (Was this an early marketing tool??)  The Latin phrase "Dum Tacet Clamat" means "though silent he speaks".  They discontinued their headstone program in the 1920's. 

 

Edgar Colquitt Miller

Born:  February 26, 1874

Died:  April 10, 1920

"Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot heal"

Location:  New Hope Methodist Church Cemetery, New Hope, Washington County, Florida

Colquitt, Miller County, Georgia - Is there a connection?

At the reunion, someone asked if our family was connected with the town of Colquitt in Miller County, Georgia.  I've even had the same thought!  And it certainly makes sense since our last name is Miller and one of James Lewis' sons is (Edgar) Colquitt.  Wouldn't that be a great discovery?

So, I did a quick Google search and.........nope, it doesn't appear so. 

According to The New Georgia Encyclopedia, "[t]he town was named for Walter Terry Colquitt, a circuit-riding Methodist preacher, attorney, judge, and statesman who served Georgia in the state senate, U.S. senate, and U.S. Congress."   "The county was named for attorney Andrew Miller, who served in the state senate and later became president of the Medical College of Georgia."

Anyway, since that's cleared up, are there any other questions out there we need answers for?

By the way, if you ever decide to venture to Colquitt, Georgia, I understand their Swamp Gravy show is well worth the drive.   To learn more, click on the link:  http://www.swampgravy.com/

A Prior Reunion

My renewed interest in our Miller history resulted in a reorganized closet in the search of my old records and pictures.  I hit pay dirt in one respect; I came across some pictures that I got from Mom (Mary Kathaleen) that I completely forgot about.  (I'm still looking for the article about James Lewis' death).

I also uncovered several other treasures that I'll share soon.  But, I want to share this picture that Mom said was taken at a previous reunion.  These are the children (except Velma) and wife of Colquit Miller.  If anyone knows more about this, please share with us.  Is the building in the background the New Hope church?

This was written on the back of the photo:

James Lewis Miller Family Reunion 2011

New Hope Church

The James Lewis Miller Family Reunion was held on October 8, 2011 at New Hope, Florida.  We had a great attendance this year and enjoyed beautiful weather.

Mary Alice travelled from Iowa to join us for the second year in a row and it was wonderful to see her again.  She has done so much hard work with keeping the family connected and announcing the reunion.  Without her efforts I know we wouldn't have had such a great reunion this year.  Thank you so much, Mary Alice.

This year Mary Alice arranged for us to have a banner that was hung at the picnic pavilion.  Thank you to Ricky Rogers, son of Claudia Rogers, for providing us with the banner which can be adapted and used for many years to come.  What a wonderful addition to our reunion!

Before dinner, we gathered in the church to conduct our "business".  Something we haven't done in many years is to recognize certain individuals.  This year we brought that back (thanks to Mary Alice again!)  The recognition was as follows:

Family member who travelled the furtherest: Mary Alice Weadon Dias (daughter of Velma Miller) from Cedar Rapids IA.
Oldest family member: Henry Gus Carter 84 years old (husband of Margaret Carter)
Youngest family member: Gavin Hilburn (son of April Cantiberry; grandson of JL Cantiberry, 2 1/2 yrs old

We also did a roll call with the results as follows:

Edgar Colquit Miller - 33 members
Roland Miller - 2 members
Susan Miller - 2 members
Frances Miller - 1 member
Mary Belle Miller - 2 members

During the business meeting Mary Alice showed us a wonderful slide show she put together of the family members we have lost during the last year.  I will post those shortly and add them to our "Memorials" button at the top.

We also had a short discussion with some answers from Kelly about some of our history.  I've designated Kelly as our Civil War family historian and look forward to his input for the blog.

One thing we didn't do was sing.  I think that's one of the things I miss the most.  One of my favorite memories is watching my grandfather (Warren Miller) lead the choir and singing those old hymn that are so familiar to me.  Hopefully, we'll have a chance to do that next year.

After our business meeting we congregated outside for the dinner prayer and dug in!!  We had
fried chicken, home made veggies, a mess of fried fish and hushpuppies and a plethora of desserts.  If anybody went home hungry it was definitely their own fault!  I believe our family has the best cooks in the country and I'm so glad they come to the reunion to feed our souls!! 

Lots of fellowship and catchinig up with relatives followed our food fest. There are several family
members I didn't get a chance to visit with.  I need to work on that next year. 

I hope we can continue to grow our reunion and urge our younger relatives to attend in the years to come.  They will soon come to realize what a wonderful family we have and the importance of keeping in touch.

Next year's reunion will be held on October 13, 2012.  Hope to see you all again then!





How do I start?

The hardest part of a project for me is getting started......where do I begin?  What do I write about?  Can I continue this on a regular basis?  Will anyone want to read this?  Will I insult or embarass someone? Will I make a mistake???  Ok, in reality that last question is the most daunting, at least for me!

Whew!  Now that I have all those fears out of the way - here I go!

My intent for this blog is to connect with family members and share our history.  I'll be asking others to share their knowledge so we can get a whole picture - such as Kelly, with his extensive Civil War research and Mary Alice with her knowledge about our American Revolution ancestors.  I would like to share others' stories about their family members.

Please feel free to contact me and share your stories, pictures or anything else you want to pass on to the family.

I also want to be considerate of other family members' security issues.  If anyone has concerns about putting this out there in the world wide web, let me know and I can make the blog by invitation only or at least not put anything on the blog that living relatives would object to.

I've put an e-mail subscription option on the right side of the blog.  If you think you'll forget to check the blog often, enter your e-mail address and you'll receive an e-mail each time a new post is published.