Return to the Land

John Harvey Miller Farm, 1937

John Harvey was active in the Salem Methodist Church and was a participant in the Mechanicsburg Charge affairs. He traveled alone on horseback and I remember his saddle was a beautiful leather tan color. Later, when Vaden Miller Jr. visited with Grandfather he would question him about the family ancestry and that’s how he learned of our grandfather’s riding to Fincastle in Botetourt County to attend social functions and visit with relatives. I remember Grandfather as a rather distinctive tall figure with white hair. I was too young to have any meaningful conversations with him. I was usually busy playing with my cousins on Sunday afternoons on Kimberling. He had worked all his life farming and as the result developed skin cancer on his ears that had to be surgically removed leaving him with only a portion of his ears. As he aged his lower eyelids became lax and somewhat everted showing the red inner lining. As a child I

Salem Methodist Church, Kimberling, Virginia, (Photo taken 1999)

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