In a letter written in March, 1948, by William's daughter, Jennie, she recounts her parents' trip from New York to Michigan:  "They came to Battle Creek Mich. by train, from Battle Creek they traveled by stage coach to a place called Walker's Hotel in Vergennes township.  That was the part over rough corduroy roads.  My father wore a silk tile hat and it got some bad jams on that ride.  Michigan was quite new in those years, and they certainly knew the hardships and joys of a pioneer life."

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General Notes: Wife - 
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Grand Rapids [MI] Herald, Jan 2, 1930:  "Recalls Early Days when Grand River was ‘Trunk Line’ between Grand Rapids and Lowell"  "Christmas with its wealth of toys for children and its costly gifts for grownups set Mrs. E. J. Miller, 96-year-old Kent county pioneer, to reminiscing of those long gone Christmases when Michigan was new.  "They get too much", she said, thinking of the presents showered on her great-grandchildren next door to her home at 1915 Plainfield Ave., NE.  "They have so many things they haven't time to enjoy any one of them.  I remember one Christmas back there on the farm near Lowell one of my boys got a homemade sled, made of rough boards nailed together and the girl got a box of letters.  They got more pleasure out of those two things than children today get out of the stacks of things given them.  Everyone has too much."No one living around Grand Rapids today is in a better position than Mrs. Miller to know of the pleasures of frontier life, for she went through every phase of pioneering and is today a vigorous, healthy old lady, keenly alive mentally and able to tell you all that happened around Lowell in the 50's and what is happening in Washington today.  For unlike most old people she is as much interested in what is doing now as she is in what happened in the past, especially political matters."I like best to read about Hoover," she said promptly when asked what she read most.  "Of course, I vote; have voted every chance I had since women were given the vote.  Why shouldn't I be interested in my country's welfare even if I am 96?  I read everything I can about what is happening in Washington, and, of course, I read my Bible and the church paper."Mrs. Miller, who was born in Cayuga, N.Y., Sept. 1, 1833, later moved to Bath, N.Y., where she attended a private school and at 21 years of age married William R. Miller.  The young couple decided to try their fortunes in the wild, untamed west and started almost immediately for Michigan.Railroads then were unknown in this part of the state.  It was in 1854.  The old Detroit and Milwaukee now a part of the Grand Trunk system, stopped at Pontiac, and further south, the railroad from Detroit ended at Battle Creek.  The Millers came to Battle Creek by train and then by stage to their 80 acres near Lowell."And such roads," Mrs. Miller tells you.  "They were just sort of trails through mud and the horses had to be changed every 12 miles.We came from an old settled country and, you can imagine how it looked to us.  We bumped and rattled around in that stage as the wheels sank or struck a submerged log and bounced us up.  Mr. Miller was wearing a stovepipe hat and it was all jammed in where his head kept hitting the top of the stage."We got to the farm, three miles from Lowell, in the spring and put up a log shack.  That first summer it had neither doors nor windows and we slept at night virtually out in the open.  In the fall we got the windows and doors in and then I had to have them locked every night before I 'd go to sleep."Wild turkeys and deer used to come up near the house and bear were numerous, though I never happened to see one myself.  We didn't need a license to shoot deer then, so we managed to get game.  It was well that we could, or we'd have had slim picking the first year or two.  All the groceries we got had to come up the river from Grand Rapids to Lowell and when the river froze over, folks around Lowell were out of luck.  I remember one time we couldn't buy a pound of sugar in the village."Money was as scarce as hen's teeth.  There simple wasn't any.  You traded what you had for what you wanted.  Even when the men worked to earn money, they couldn't get paid.  I remember one time my husband and two brothers worked for a man, hoping to get money for some things we needed.  When they were through, he hadn't any money to pay them, so they took their pay all in codfish.  Another time, my husband helped a man bring a logging raft from Greenville to Lowell.  He couldn't get his pay for two years, and finally he settled by taking a dog in payment for that hard work."Indians were my principal neighbors.  It was nothing to turn around fr from work and find one of them standing behind me.  They came in so silently you'd never hear them.  They had a village on the island near Lowell and swarmed everywhere.  They used to pretend they couldn't speak English, but they could, all right.  I wouldn't want to say they stole, but I know I asked my mother and father to stop to supper with us one night after we'd been to Lowell to church, and when I went to get supper, everything had been cleaned out of the pantry."Yes, I know all about pioneering.  I've done about everything there was to do on a new farm except plow.  And I did hold the plow once when My husband was using a new team.  I used to pile brush and burn it, help with the chores and do all sorts of things."Tragedy came into the life of Mrs. Miller with the death of her husband 41 years ago.  "He was out in the barn early in the morning loading grain to go the market," she said simply.  "I was helping him, when all at once he toppled over.  I caught him and he died there with his head in my lap.  It was heart disease."Of the six children born to the hardy pioneers, two had died in infancy, and four others were left with Mrs. Miller.  She stayed on the farm a time after her husband's death, but 35 years ago the family moved here, living first on Sweet St., then on North St. and 15 years ago moving to the present location on  Plainfield Ave.  Here Mrs. Miller is the busiest person in the household.  She washes dishes, takes care of her own room, gets the Sunday dinner, if the weather keeps her from church, and in her spare time does fine embroidering and other handwork.  At present she is knitting some fine lace.  In the summer she takes long auto trips, 100 miles is just a pleasant jaunt, and when the Berean Baptist Church was dedicated a fortnight ago she attended both Sunday services.Living with her are two daughters, Mrs. Ann DeNise and Miss Jennie Miller, a teacher in the Grand Rapids school.  Her other two children are Mrs. Norman Miller of Chicago and Don Miller of Lowell.  She has four grandchildren, 11 great-grandchildren and two great-great-grandchildren. (43) 

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Sources

  1. William R. Miller funeral card(1888).
  2. List of family births and deaths in a letter to Theresa Palmer in 
       Oct. 1925. 
  3. New York. Steuben County, 1850 US Census population schedule, Bath 
       township (Washington D.C.: The National Archives. 
  4. Michigan.  Kent County, 1870 U.S. Census, population schedule (Washington 
       D.C.: The National Archives. 
  5. Lowell, Kent, MI Death Certificate. 
  6. database, 
       www.rootsweb.com/~mikent/cemeteries/lowell/oakwood/index.html.
  7. Mary J. Miller Boileau list of family w/marriage dates and spouse names.
  8. Mary J. Miller Boileau list of family w/ marriage dates and spouse names.
  9. Grand Rapids Herald, Norman B. Miller obituary, 13 Feb 1931, p. 3. 
  10. Oakwood Cemetery, Lowell, Kent, Michigan.
  11. Grand Rapids Herald, Eunice Miller obituary, 14 Jun 1931, page 3. 
  12. Michigan.  Kent County, 1870 U.S. Census, population schedule (Washington 
       D.C.: The National Archives. 
  13. State of Michigan death certificate (Kent County).
  14. Bill Lassiter Genealogy Report, Bill Lassiter. 
  15. State of Michigan death certificate (Kent County. 
  16. Grand Rapids Herald. 
  17. database, 
       www.rootsweb.com/~mikent/cemeteries/lowell/oakwood/index.html.
  18. Connie Daniels via Bill Lassiter. 
  19. Connie Daniels via Bill Lassiter. 
  20. Author Unknown, Miller Family Tree.
  21. Author Unknown, Miller Family Tree. 
  22. Michigan.  Kent County, 1860 U.S. Census, population schedule (Washington 
       D.C.: The National Archives. 
  23. State of Illinois death certificate no. 5168 (1931). 
  24. Grand Rapids Herald, Norman B. Miller obituary, 17 Feb 1931, Page 3. 
  25. Barry County Marriage Licenses Online 
       (http://barryco.readyhosting.com/Cdata/MLSearch.asp. 
  26. Ibid, A note on this tree gives Mary's birth date as 11 Feb 1867. 
  27. Michigan Dept. of Community Health, GENDIS online index of Michigan 
       Deaths. 
  28. Author Unknown, Miller Family Tree.,(February 1930). 
  29. database, 
       www.rootsweb.com/~mikent/cemeteries/lowell/oakwood/index.html.
  30. Michigan Dept. of Community Health, GENDIS online index of Michigan 
       Deaths.
  31. Author Unknown, Miller Family Tree (February 1930). 
  32. Michigan Dept. of Community Health, GENDIS online index of Michigan 
       Deaths.
  33. Author Unknown, Miller Family Tree(February 1930). 
  34. database, 
       www.rootsweb.com/~mikent/cemeteries/lowell/oakwood/index.html. 
  35. Michigan.  Kent County, 1880 US Census population schedule, Lowell 
       (Washington DC:  National Archives). 
  36. database, 
       www.rootsweb.com/~mikent/cemeteries/lowell/oakwood/index.html.
  37. database, 
       www.rootsweb.com/~mikent/cemeteries/lowell/oakwood/index.html.
  38. Michigan Early Birth Records, 1871-8174 
       www.rootsweb.com/~mikent/births/1871-1874/mn.html (Kent County Michigan 
       GenWeb Project. 
  39. Michigan.  Kent County, 1880 US Census population schedule, Lowell 
       (Washington DC:  National Archives). 
  40. Kent, Michigan, death certificate no. 62-1171 (1962).
  41. database, 
       www.rootsweb.com/~mikent/cemeteries/lowell/oakwood/index.html.
  42. Kent, Michigan, death certificate no. 62-1171 (1962).
  43. Grand Rapids Hearld, Nonagenarian Club.