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"William Ernest Miller (1898-1994)-Proud Miller County Heritage"

(Printed in THE MILLER COUNTY AUTOGRAM-SENTINEL in the column, 'WINDOW TO THE PAST', Jan. 10, 2013)

Ernest & Jewel (Thomas) Miller

Ernest Miller passed away in late April 1994 and his brief obituary may have gone unnoticed by many, but he had a wonderful story worth repeating... About 10 years earlier, in 1984, I had the honor and pleasure of visiting with Mr. Miller at his home near Etterville and we sat for a few hours as he told me the remarkable story of his ancestors…..the Miller family of Miller County.

I wrote a story about his ancestral family in 1984 and it appeared in THE ELDON ADVERTISER and THE MILLER COUNTY AUTOGRAM SENTINEL. He was truly proud of his heritage and had every right to feel that pride.

The Millers were among the county’s earliest settlers, homesteading on the prairies of Saline township several years before Miller County was formed. His grandfather, William Miller, was instrumental in getting the wheels of government rolling. The first session of the County Court was held in his one-room log cabin, located near the Osage River in 1837.

William Ernest Miller was born near Mt. Pleasant, in Saline township, on 27 Nov 1898, the 11th child of Thomas Hart Benton Miller and Emily Tindell. His father was the 13th child of William Miller and Sarah (Mulkey), the early pioneers who settled in Miller County. Ernest’s mother, Emily Tindell, was a daughter of Josiah Tindell of High Point in nearby Moniteau County, MO. Ernest’s parents married about 1869, probably in Moniteau County. When they married, they lived near his parents in the Mt. Pleasant area.

Over the years Emily gave birth to at least 11 children because Ernest told me he was the 11th child of his family. Some of those children were:

LAURA BELLE MILLER 1872-1874
LILLIE JOSEPHINE MILLER 1874-1961 m. James Monroe Stark
IDA MILLER 1876-1878
MINNIE PEARL MILLER 1879-1968 m. Wm. I. Johnson
GERTRUDE LEE MILLER 1884-1976 m. Joseph Adams
ANNA MAUDE MILLER 1888-1963 m. Orville Bennett Baudy
INFANT DAUGHTER born & died 1891
THOMAS JEFFERSON MILLER 1892-1894;
WILLIAM ERNEST MILLER 1898-1994 m. Jewell Mae Thomas

When Ernest was about 32 years old, he married Jewell Mae Thomas in Tuscumbia. For 52 years they shared their lives and were parents of one son, Daryl Miller. When I visited Ernest in 1984, he was a widower and was living in the home of his son and daughter-in-law in Etterville.

As I wrote about the life story of Mr. Miller, who among you can boast that when your grandfather was born in 1795, George Washington was serving as America’s first president; when your father was born in 1845, James Knox Polk was our 11th president; and when you were born in 1898, William McKinley was the 25th president……Ernest could!!! In only three generations of the Miller family, 199 years had been spanned and every American president from Washington to Bush had led our country from its birthing pains to become the greatest nation on earth….What a heritage!! ... What a story!! ... Rest well, Mr. Miller--I am proud to have had the privilege to meet you…..