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John Harvey Miller

John Harvey Miller, my paternal grandfather, was the youngest child of Dr. Lorenzo John and Martha Lois Bird Miller, born on Kimberling in Bland County on June 1, 1871. He grew up on the family farm working to help support the family. He eventually inherited 146 acres from his father and spent his life raising his family in this pleasant and peaceful valley. As a young man he met a beautiful young lady of Irish descent named Minnie Catherine Wright and they married in 1892. Grandmother was born on December 5, 1872. John Harvey was 22 years old and Minnie was 20 when they began their life together. They were educated in Bland County schools but details are unknown. Their first home was in a log house up the hollow from his parents’ home located beside a road and a creek. Dr. Lorenzo Miller died in 1896 and John Harvey and Minnie then took care of his mother, Martha Lois, until her death. John Harvey was a gentle and gracious man. He was blessed with a wonderful wife and together they raised eight children on this small farm. Food was raised on the farm as well as forages and grains for the cattle. He tilled the land with horses and was exceedingly kind in caring for his animals. The horses and milk cows were part of the family and he treated them as such. He would always thank a cow after he milked her. There was an apple orchard adjacent to the home that produced fruit for the winter months. The apples would be buried in the ground and covered with hay or straw. My father often told me that as a youngster when he’d get hungry he would go to the apple cache , reach his arm back into the straw and pull out a well preserved apple. There was a barn and a granary and the basic farm tools to work the land. Grandfather enjoyed his family immensely and welcomed them home on weekends. Grandmother was a superb cook and she knew how to prepare wild game to perfection, which helped sustain them through lean years. They raised sheep for wool, mutton, and sold lambs. Grandmother cooked on a wood stove and had a hand pump well just outside the kitchen. There was no indoor plumbing and they took their Saturday night baths in a washtub. The house, being rebuilt by his father after the fire, was a wood frame board house with front and back porches, a second story with bedrooms, chimneys on each end of the house, and large stone fireplaces. The first floor contained a dining room, kitchen, and two large rooms each containing a stone fireplace. On the north side of the house there was a room with an old beautiful desk where Dr. Lorenzo Miller had worked and kept his records. Also in that room was an original hand cranked telephone on the wall, which was still in service in the mid-1940s. On the south side, in the living room where guests were entertained, were the usual family pictures and elegant furniture. In the corner was an old hand crank Victrola that was still used to play records. The house was situated on a slight rise on the rolling green front lawn. A full front porch adorned the house with distinction. On warm summer nights they would sit on the swing and watch the full moon rise over the mountain as if only to bless the valley and home below.

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