Very Old Photos

I could have taken photos today. The sun was out for most of the day and I spent a couple of hours with Unky Herb raking and bagging leaves. The sun was low in the sky by the time we finished delivering the leaves to the leaf recycling center, but my camera was in the house and we needed to make a stop at the bread store to top up the larder. I also could have snapped a photo or two ar Wooddale before or after engaging in tennis competition. I did neither.

Instead, I offer old photos from my stock of classics. On exhibit today are G.L. Miller (1848-1920) - my great grandfather - and his wife and my great grandmother, Nancy Jane McDill Miller (1847-1926). Between the two of them they account for about a quarter of my DNA (and that of a number of readers of the blog). G.L. was an attorney, a politician, a newspaper owner-editor and a gentleman farmer in Wisconsin. He led what seems to be a very interesting life. Much of his editorial writing exists on newspaper archives at various Historical Society sites at Wisconsin colleges.



Nancy Jane married G.L in DeSoto, Wisconsin, on January 17, 1875. A little over seven months later my grandfather, G.E Miller, was born (undoubtedly prematurely) in DeSoto, followed by Charles and Mayme some years later. One of Nancy's brothers, George Davis McDill, was a captain of the Wisconsin Volunteers in the Civil War and a Wisconsin State legislator. When he died in1899, two of his children (Ruth and Ella) came to live with G.L. Nancy and family.


I think that G.L bears a striking resemblance to one of his great grandsons.