Wedding bells and nuptial tales: Next FTF post is up!

My next post for Family Tree Firsts is up.  You can read it here.

I periodically succumb to being an emotional, weepy, and sentimental fool.  Yes, it does happen, and sometimes way too frequently for my tastes.  Just like how my husband can predict which movies and at what points I will break out the tissues.   Gah!  Needless to say I have a soft spot for weddings in my heart.

Even when I was in full tom-boy mode as a girl I would dream about my wedding day.  Planning all the details.  From the flowers, to my dress, to the cake, and by the time I hit middle school I knew what a wanted.  Did it happen that way?  No.  Did I want it too?  Ah, no.  A twenty-somethings tastes are dramatically different from that of a ten year old. 

However, that is how I noticed that there was something different about my family.  All my friends houses had wedding photos and albums, sometimes of multiple generations.  Mine didn't.  My grandmother's houses didn't either.  When I asked my dad's mom about it she pulled out the one wedding photo she had, her grandparents picture.  It is the one I have in the post.

She told me a lot of stories about them too.  Some fascinating and cool.  Some a bit sadder.  You see, when she was sixteen the oldest son of John Jr. came home.  Grandma eavesdropped on her mother, aunts, and uncles while they sat and talked to the man who was looking for his family.  They told him to leave town, and that no one really wanted to see him.  Their own nephew.  Can you imagine?

John and Mary in the
early 1930s

John Miller and Mary Neagle did have a good life together, however my grandmother learned that day that John never forgave his son for the predicament they were in.  He was not the kindest man to his eldest child, and from what this stranger said John Jr left when he was old enough and went to California.  There he was happy and raised a family.  Here his son had come all the way home to Indiana to meet the family he and his siblings didn't know.  Grandma said he never came back, but she was not sure that they ever really went to California either. 

In fact, I am not sure he left either.  I have found some records that point to him just moving a couple counties over and marrying a girl from the same town he was from.  A mystery to solve.

John and Mary (both born in 1866) had 10 children:
John Jr: 12 July 1884 to ?
Elnora Miller: 20 December 1889 to 1 April 1891
August Miller: 3 October 1891 to 31 December 1974 married Stella Butler
Albert Miller: 23 July 1893 to 9 February 1954  married Bessie McCraney
Theodore Miller:  29 July 1894 to 12 July 1904 
Agnes Miller:  2 September 1897 to 12 May 1977  married Timothy Brennan
Frederick Miller:  13 November 1899 to ?  married Sophia Whetstone
Joseph J Miller:  26 February 1902 to 17 September 1945  married Rosa Porter
Amelia V Miller: 28 March 1904 to31 March 1984  married Cornelius Colbert
Mary F Miller:  5 April 1907 to 24 July 1983  married Thomas Jordan

John died in 1935 and his wife Mary in 1934 at Washington, Daviess County, Indiana.