Return to the Land

PART III

The Oaks ---------------------------------

Dedication

This portion of the Miller history is dedicated to the memory of my parents, David Stafford and Clara Watson Miller. It will deal with their lives and hardships and unending devotion to my immediate family and me. They sacrificed their time and financial resources and labored to help me gain a professional education. I can never repay them other than achieving a few accomplishments of which they had dreamed. It is important for my children and grandchildren to be aware of their origins. While they can never fully know their ancestors there will be a record from which an insight can be gained of the times past. With a certain amount of imagination history can become a vivid reality in the minds of those who follow and they can return for a visit with the past. The passage of the home farm from generation to generation is very important in showing respect for our forebears and being able to belong to a piece of earth from which we came. It remains a refuge for renewing the spirit. Much of this section is written in the first person since it deals with my life and experiences. It should not be interpreted as boastful but merely another life recorded for future generations to reflect upon and have a sense of how we lived during the twentieth-century.

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