Cissie and Brother

Twins Arline and William Alton Miller, whose lives this family history blog are organized around, were born at 2 and 2:30 p.m., respectively, on April 13, 1925, to Clyde Clifton Miller, a car salesman, and Mamie Louella Jackson Miller, a housewife, at 1234 E. 24th St., Winston-Salem, Forsyth County, N.C.

This scrapblog seeks to preserve a family history and to honor the memory of twins Brother and Cissie, who were wonderful human beings and parents, as well as those of their sisters, Norma Martin Cashion and Marilyn Miller. In addition, it seeks to show how personal and family history always are shaped by and shape the history of a nation and its culture, and how, in the end, we are all linked, one way or another.

The twins, shown here in late 1925, were dubbed Brother and Cissie. Note Brother's oddly shaped head, the result of his being cramped in the womb. His parents worried about it and bound it in cloths to reshape it, with some success. His classmates teased him about it unmercifully, calling him "Egg." His kids, however, would have been unnerved to have him any other way.

Cissie and Brother were best friends their entire lives, even when far away from each other as their lives took different paths. When Cissie died in 1993, Brother told his wife and family that he felt a deep emptiness inside.

Cissie, left, and Brother, with his cousin Virginia Holcomb's dog, Prince (Brother LOVED dogs, a happy passion inherited by his daughter Chats), posed with friends and beloved cousin Virginia (later Harris) on a hot summer's day in the late 1930s.

The twins turned 16 on Easter Sunday 1941.

Brother and Cissie, all dressed up, sometime before Brother was drafted into the U.S. Army, which eventually would become his career, and headed for Europe to fight in World War II.

Brother, Cissie and Cissie's husband, Bill Edwards, in the 1950s. The twins didn't look much alike -- Brother had green eyes and light hair and Cissie had brown eyes and dark hair -- but they had identical smiles.

Clyde and Mamie

Clyde Clifton Miller (May 30, 1894-Aug. 5, 1938) and Mamie Louella Jackson (March 26, 1895-Oct. 7, 1951) were married on June 25, 1916, in North Carolina. Mamie was a widow whose first husband, Charles Norman Martin Sr. (1899-Nov. 4, 1918) had died in the great influenza epidemic. She had a stepson, Charles Norman Martin Jr. (Sept. 15, 1913-) and a baby girl, Norma Louise Martin (July 6, 1917-June 17, 2009).

Clyde and Mamie are the couple at right. Relatives report that each had a limp and they seemed to sway when they walked together, something they laughed about. We like that image!

Brother Miller wrote this of his parents:

My parents were very strict about honesty and regular church attendance, and didn't allow profanity or drinking. ... Until I was on my own, I never realized how much my parents sacrificed for us.

Clyde and Mamie Miller are buried at Woodland Cemetery in Winston-Salem, N.C. The four photos below were taken in November 2011, when my North Carolina first cousins David Edwards and Dee Ann Edwards and I visited their graves.

The twins' siblings: Norma and Marilyn

Twins Brother and Cissie had two siblings, Norma Martin Cashion (July 6, 1917-June 17, 2009) and Marilyn Miller (March 11, 1927-April 6, 2012).

Wee twins Cissie and Brother, far left and far right, hung out with older sister Norma Martin, middle, who probably was babysitting, little sis Marilyn (the littlest kid) and cousins Phyllis Anne and Janet Maureen Davis, daughters of Hattie Belle Jackson Davis (Aug. 31, 1899-April 14, 1933), Mamie's sister, and Walter Clarence Davis (April 2, 1899-June 6, 1970). At the time, the Millers lived at 1234 E. 24th St. in Winston-Salem, N.C. In 1935, they moved to 2925 Patterson Av., and in 1937, to 419 W. 28th St.


Brother posed with little sis Marilyn Miller in the 1930s. He had a dog named Rusty, but we think the dog he's holding is Prince, who belonged to first cousin Virginia Holcomb (later Harris).

Brother and Cissie posed with the family (father Clyde Clifton Miller had passed away by this time). From left: Marilyn, Brother, mother Mamie Louella Jackson Miller, Norma and Cissie.

Marilyn in April 1944.

Marilyn, Brother and Cissie in Balitimore, Md., in the 1960s.

Marilyn, a talented oil painter, with her work "Praying Hands" in 1963.Cissie, Marilyn and Alverna Miller (Brother's wife) with squirrely little cousins David Edwards and Chris Miller in the early 1960s. Alverna was pregnant with Mary Catherine Miller, her third child, at the time. Alverna must have taken some getting used to -- she was a Northerner (from Minnesota) and a pioneering feminist. She eventually came to love pinto beans and cornbread, and Brother to love northern walleye (but he never developed a taste for wild rice).

Norma, Cissie, Marilyn and Brother in 1980.

Norma, Brother and Cissie in September 1991. All are gone now from this world, but never forgotten.

In November 2011, I visited Winston-Salem, N.C., and was able to see Marilyn, then 84, for the first time in many years. We had a wonderful visit, and she shared her very good memories of the past, some of which I've incorporated into this blog.

Marilyn, the last surviving child of Clyde Clifton Miller and Mamie Louella Jackson Miller, had her share of ailments, but at 84, she was still pretty glamorous. I'm very thankful I had a chance to visit with her before her death of complications from a stroke on April 6, 2012.

Mamie's parents: John Hamilton Jackson and Millie Ann Ward

Mamie Louella Jackson Miller's parents were John Hamilton "Ham" Jackson (March 18, 1859-Dec. 24, 1924) and Millie Ann Ward Jackson (May 27, 1860-Aug. 9, 1928). They lived in Stokes County, N.C., before moving to Winston-Salem, where Ham ran a grocery store.

Millie Ann Ward Jackson and John Hamilton "Ham" Jackson.

Millie Ann Ward Jackson and John Hamilton "Ham" Jackson, the couple at right, with unidentified friends or relatives.

For more on both of their genealogies, keep reading in this blog.

Here's what their youngest son, Robert Alton Jackson, wrote about them in a family history he penned in the mid-1970s:

MY FATHER: JOHN HAMILTON JACKSON

John Hamilton Jackson was born March 18, 1859, the son of John Madison Jackson and Julia Ann Richardson Jackson. His parents had four children: James, J.W. (Jerd) [other accounts call him William Jordan], Belle [other accounts call her Ruth Isabell] and my father, who was the last born.


He was married to Millie Ann Ward, daughter of Ebenezer Ward and Mildred (Millie) Martin Ward, on April 1, 1883. He and my mother were born in Stokes County, N.C.


My parents had nine children, three daughters and six sons. They were William Daniel, James Lee, John Madison, Grover Cleveland, Mamie Louella, Hattie Belle, Edwin Schley and me, Robert Alton.

One daughter, Mary Ward Jackson, born in 1887, lived only eight months. The Ward and Jackson families intermarried. My mother's brother, William T. Ward, married Belle Jackson, my father's sister.

You will note that the men in our family, like their father, were named for famous Americans -- John Hamilton (father), James Lee, John Madison, Grover Cleveland, Edwin Schley and Robert Alton. I believe Schley was a famous naval officer from the period of Edwin's birth. Alton was for a famed American judge, Alton Parker. 


Most of the family married early. I was the last born and am now the only survivor of my family.


My father was congenial, people-loving, a hard worker and religious. He was loved and respected by all who knew him. He was a friend of all people, white or black, showing his care for others and compassion for those less fortunate than he. He had a great love for his family. He never showed his concerns when things went wrong, keeping it mostly within himself. He let my mother discipline the children, and she did.


My father had little education but what he had he made the best of. My mother could neither read nor write -- she learned to draw her name in case it was needed on a legal paper -- but this never dawned on me as being a handicap. They insisted their children go to school and kept them there as long as they had the wherewithal and power to do so.


I remember my father reading the newspaper to my mother. His education did not reach to the pronouncing of complicated words, or, for that matter, to a full understanding of their meaning. When he reached a word he couldn't pronounce, his voice would lower to a mumble, continuing as if the word hadn't been there. But the meaning, the gist of the story, always came through.


My father was a stern man with his family, but he was fair and compassionate. The only time I can remember him whipping me was when he caught me stealing candy from a candy case in the store. I was taking it to a girl in the neighborhood with whom I was fascinated. My mother insisted that Papa whip me. He did so reluctantly -- and it was only a few whacks on my back end -- but that, plus his stern lecture on stealing, was all I needed never to repeat the act.


Although at times he could have managed it, my father never owned a home. The Hickory Street house in which I was born and the building housing the grocery were owned by my brother Daniel. We lived, prior to my father's death and even sometimes afterwards, in some 20 houses, all rented and mostly in the northern end of the city. I never knew why he moved so much, except that it wasn't because of the rent -- he always paid that, and on time.


Because I was just out of high school when he died and knew little about finances, I never thought to question his reasons. He was Papa and when he said move, we moved. He could have, had he taken advantage of his opportunities, become a rich man in real estate. He had the chance of buying property on the courthouse square when he was running the grocery for about $2 a square foot.

Several people who came to Winston about the time he did bought property in the heart of downtown and became rich landowners. I am not condemning my father, because how many times have I had the same opportunity and never took advantage of it? Another thought is that members of the family were a proud lot and made their marks without the help of a rich parent. I wonder what would have happened however, if the family had had a lot of money.


My parents were never poor to the extent of asking for help from anyone or so poor their family had to suffer for want of food, clothing and a roof over their heads.


The only time I saw Papa take a drink of liquor was on Sunday morning before breakfast. He kept a pint in the kitchen safe and would pour a shot in a cup, fill it up with hot coffee, put in some sugar and presto! -- he had a coffee lace. Why he took it only on Sunday mornings I never understood. After breakfast he walked all the kids eight or nine blocks to North Winston Presbyterian Church. Somehow, I know that if he violated any commandments, the Lord forgave him.


I never remember my father being sick in bed. I know he had at one time an ailment which I realized in my later years was a bleeding ulcer. He never gave into this and eventually healed it by taking laudanum, a medicine sold over the counter without a prescription. Laudanum was a solution of opium in alcohol that cannot now be purchased without a prescription, if it is available at all. Maybe present-day doctors are missing a cure for ulcers.


An outstanding feature of my father was his closely cropped mustache. One day I came into the house and saw a man sitting in the living room reading a paper. I went to the kitchen and asked Mama who that stranger was. She laughed and said, "Don't you know your own father?" He had shaved off his mustache, but when Mama told him what I had said, he let it grow out again. He figured if his own children didn't recognize him sans his mustache, he'd better get back to normal.


My father's favorite recreation was fishing and hunting. I went hunting once with him, Edwin and Grover, but I was only a sightseer as I was too young to carry a gun. As for fishing, a sport all my brothers loved, Papa would go fishing in the old Winston Water Works. He fished at night when he couldn't be seen easily, since it was against the law to fish in the lake. We walked from home to the lake, at least a mile or more, sneaked through the woods to a favorite spot, and came home, most of the time, with fish for breakfast. He would sometimes take a gig and gig for frogs, the legs of which are an expensive delicacy. If you haven't experienced the taste of fresh fish or frog legs for breakfast, you've missed a culinary treat!


Ham and Millie Ann stick out in my memory as hardworking, honest, sincere Christian people devoted to their family, friends and neighbors. It was only until I got some age on me that I realized this fact, although as I look back I realize I must have known it from the day of my birth.


MY MOTHER: MILLIE ANN WARD JACKSON


My mother, like her husband, seldom if ever complained. She took it for granted that it was her job to cook for the family (and at times for a host of other people), keep up with the housekeeping, go to church on Sundays and come back to start all over again for another week -- week after week after week.


My earliest remembrance of my mother is of her cooking. My most vivid memories were the Sunday dinners. She never knew how many people would be present, and I don't remember a time when there wasn't a second table to take care of the family and their friends. You didn't have to have an invitation to eat, you just came and sat down, and Mama always had enough. The meal was served in the kitchen, a large room with a cast-iron wood-burning stove. The food was cooked in cast-iron skillets and pots, cooking utensils you can't even find today. There were no gourmet recipes. It was wholesome food and of a variety you wouldn't believe, two or three kinds of meat, beans, corn, squash, potatoes, cabbage, green peas, dried peas, dried beans, radishes, onions. With the number of people we had for Sunday dinner, we had few leftovers. Then, of course, my mother would slave over the dishpan until time for supper before she was finished cleaning up. If she had lived today, she could have made a fortune as a chef for a restaurant serving a wholesome country meal. How she stood this, day after day, I'll never know.


When my daddy killed his hogs, the fat was used to make lye soap for washing clothes and lard for cooking. Both were made, separately of course, in a huge iron washpot under which a hot fire was built. Mother mixed lye in with the fat and after it boiled for a time, it was allowed to cool and cake up. I used to help the best I could to cut the soap out of the washpot, usually in wedge-shaped pieces. It was then put out to dry, after which it was ready to use. It was a brown soap mass resembling the Octagon soap used so much in those days for washing clothes, and still obtainable today. I am a little hazy as to the rendering of lard, but it was pure white and was stored away in cans for Mama's use in producing those wonderful meals.


Mother was not an austere person, but she was strict on discipline and maintained high moral standards for her family. She beat me with a switch from a tree and paddled my hiney many times. My father let my mother handle the discipline. When Mother spoke, it was final. I remember one instance when I was playing about three blocks from home and forgot the time, and brother Edwin was sent to fetch me. He yelled, "Mama said for you to come home!" Now, Edwin and I got along most of the time, but he was about four years older than I and sometimes he rubbed me the wrong way. My temper flared and I yelled, "You go to hell!" Edwin grinned, hot-footed it home and, I am sure with a gleam in his eye, told Mama what I had said. When I got home, she took me into the bedroom, took some sewing thread and tied me to the bedpost with it and dared me to break the string. This was one of her disciplinary measures and it did a lot more good than a spanking, paddling or whipping.


One thing Mama insisted on was that we attend church on Sundays. We walked to church every Sunday, the children in front and Papa and Mama bringing up the rear; to be sure, we didn't stray.

Mama could put up with just about anything, but she finally got tired of the white rats Edwin and I were raising in the barn in back of our Hickory Street house. She gave one direct demand that they go, and they went. I don't remember ever arguing with my parents about everything. Their word was law and we obeyed. Sometimes it hurt, like getting rid of the white rats, but we did what was best according to our parents, and we never questioned them or regretted doing what they said do.

My mother got a great deal of happiness from simple pleasures. For instance, she always wanted to live in a house with a front porch, which the vast majority of houses had at that time. She dearly loved to sit on the porch (when she had time out from her household chores) and watch the horses and buggies and wagons, and later automobiles. She watched the streetcars go by when we lived on Liberty Street, the streetcars' northern route.


After the death of my father, Mama and I lived with my sister and her husband, Clifton Miller, for a time, and then with my sister Hattie Belle and her husband, Clarence Davis. We were living with them when we discovered Mama had cancer, which was terminal. She suffered much pain, couldn't eat and experienced all the other ailments that went with this disease. She passed away on Aug. 9, 1928.

David Edwards and Dee Ann Edwards at the graves of John Hamilton Jackson and Millie Ann Ward Jackson, their great-grandparents (and mine), at Woodland Cemetery in Winston-Salem, N.C., in November 2011.

Mamie Louella Jackson Miller, our grandmother

Mamie Louella Jackson was born on March 26, 1895 in Winston-Salem, Forsyth County, N.C. She died of cancer on Oct. 7, 1951. She was married twice, first on June 25, 1916, to Charles Norman Martin Sr. (1889-Nov. 4, 1918), who died in the great influenza epidemic, then to Clyde Clifton Miller (on March 24, 1923). She had four children: Norma Martin and Arline, William Alton and Marilyn Miller. (Charles Norman Martin had a son by a previous relationship, Charles Norman Martin Jr., born Sept. 15, 1913.)

Mamie at about age 19, in a stellar hat.

That's Mamie in the middle of the back row. We're not sure who all the people in this photo are, but we're very sure of some of them, including beaming Brother, Cissie and Marilyn, in the front row. The back of the photo says: Front row: Roy Lee, Brother, Marilyn, Cissie. Second row: Anna Frances. Third row: Virginia Holcomb, Dude, Mamie, Ola. Fourth row: Grandma (Tennessee Isabelle Gough Miller), Thelma.

Mamie (second from left) in 1945 with daughters Norma, Marilyn and Cissie.

In 1951, shortly before her death from cancer.

Brother Miller was serving in the U.S. Army in Schwabisch Hall, Germany, when he received this sad telegram. He wrote in his grandson's memory book that he was unable to come home for her funeral because of military regulations.

He wrote of his mother:
My happiest memories of childhood are of the fun we had gathering at our house with friends, drinking coffee, eating Krispy Kreme doughnuts and playing games. My mother was always tolerant of our noise and just enjoyed having us all at home rather than out somewhere. Although I am certain we caused a lot of work for her, she never complained.
Here's what Mamie's little brother, Robert Alton Jackson, wrote about her in a family memoir:
My sister Mamie was, like my sister Hattie Belle, a good and wonderful human being. She was married twice, the first time to Charles Martin, who died in the terrible influenza epidemic of 1918, and later to Clifton Miller.

Charles Martin had been previously married and had a son, Charles Jr. To Charles Sr. and Mamie was born one child, a daughter, Norma. The marriage of Mamie Jackson and Clifton Miller brought forth three children, Arline and Alton, twins, and Marilyn.

Mamie was a patient soul, taking the harshness and goodness of life with stoical fortitude and cheerfulness. She had been crippled with what was called "white swelling," leaving her left leg shorter than the right. Her second husband, Clyde Clifton Miller, had a short right leg, and the two, walking in step together, brushed each others' shoulders at every other step. They got a lot of amusement out of this rather than feeling embarrassed.

Mamie was, like her mother, a wonderful cook, and as my first mother-in-law said, she made, among other delicacies, "the best cheese pimiento sandwiches ever." I can personally add to that such things as pinto beans, corn bread, fried chicken, cakes of every description, pies and you-name-it.

Mamie was a heartwarming, good Christian woman who always thought of others before herself, and this was especially true in regard to her family. She had friends galore, and bore her good times as well as the bad with never-ending faith and fortitude.

Clyde Clifton Miller, our grandfather

Clyde Clifton Miller, who usually went by Clifton, was born on May 30, 1894, in Yadkin County, North Carolina. He died on Aug. 5, 1938, of injuries suffered in a head-on collision with a Greyhound bus being test-driven by a mechanic who had forgotten to connect the brakes.

Clifton and his brother William.

Clifton with sisters Nevada and Viola (Ola). Nevada would die of diphtheria at age 9.


Clifton, second from right, with Gough, William, John Holcomb (who married Clifton's sister Thelma) and Luther; Harvey (Woodrow) is in front. All told, his siblings were Nevada, who died of diphtheria at age 9; Viola (Ola), mother of Margaret Wallace; Thelma (1901-), mother of Virginia Holcomb Harris; William; Gough; Luther; Jenny; Harvey (Woodrow) and Johnnie, a girl born 3 months after John Wesley Miller's death (she married Leban Hauser)

There's Clifton in the middle of the back row. Also in that row were his mother, Tennessee Isabel Gough Miller, and siblings Viola (Ola); Thelma and William; in the front row were siblings Luther, Jenny, Harvey (Woodrow) and Gough. When we look at this and other photos of Clifton, we immediately see resemblances to his twins, Brother and Cissie, and especially to Brother's daughter Mary Catherine Miller, who inherited those solemn, deepset eyes.

The document above is Clifton's World War I registration card (thanks to Cathy's friend Sharon Buller, a genealogy buff, for finding this document). We believe the disability it refers to was a club foot or some kind of foot problem that caused him to walk with a rolling gait. This may have kept him out of the so-called Great War. And who knows, had he been thrown into trench warfare in Europe, if any of us would even be here?

Brother Miller wrote this about his dad's death:


My father earned his living as an automobile salesman, Texaco filling station operator and contractor. When I was 13, he was killed in an accident involving a truck he was driving and a Greyhound bus driven by a mechanic who was making a test run. The brakes on the Greyhound failed and the bus ran head-on into my dad's truck. He died shortly thereafter in the hospital without ever regaining consciousness. My mother had never worked outside the home, and the responsibility for the family fell on her and on Norma, and then on the rest of us. Norma had graduated from high school and I worked after school, Saturdays and summers in a grocery. When a settlement was made with Greyhound, we received $60 per month until the last of us (Marilyn) graduated from high school.

What I loved about my dad was that although we didn't have much in material things, he always made me feel I was special and really worth something. He built up my self-esteem. Until I was on my own, I never realized how much my parents sacrificed for us.

John Wesley Miller's parents: Gaither Miller and Mary Ann Haynes

Gaither W. Miller (March 10, 1828-March 12, 1906, born in Courtney, N.C.) and Mary Ann Haynes (Feb. 1, 1833-April 9, 1896), whom he married on Sept. 26, 1855, lived in a big house in Yadkin County, N.C., which now belongs to and has been restored by relative Lester Miller. Mary Ann's father had given them 50 acres when they married, and Gaither added 50 more.

Their children, in addition to John Wesley Miller (June 8, 1868-Feb. 4, 1916), were Luther Franklin Miller (Sept. 10, 1856 or 1858-April 8, 1926) and Mary Alice Miller (May 15, 1877-).

Gaither helped build the first courthouse in Yadkin County.

During the Civil War, Confederate soldiers hid in the house. In 1861 or 1862, Union soldiers came there, and Gaither took his gun and hid down in the woods. He told his wife that she should yell if they hurt anyone and that he would then come out and kill them. The soldiers lifted the covers off of 5-year-old Luther, who was sleeping, but respected his mother's plea not to wake him. They left peaceably.

*****

Above, me, and below, first cousins David Edwards and Dee Ann Edwards, at the graves of Gaither W. Miller and Mary Ann Haynes Miller, our great-great-grandparents, at Flat Rock Baptist Cemetery near Hamptonville, in Yadkin County, N.C., in November 2011. Many other relatives, especially from the Gough side of the family, are also buried here. (See the lower posts with deeper family genealogies for more information.)

Below, the graves of Mary Ann Haynes Miller's parents, John Haynes (1815-1870) and Rebecca Shinn Haynes (1816-1862), also at Flat Rock.

William Alton "Brother" Miller

William Alton "Brother" Miller was born on April 13, 1925, along with his twin sister, Arline "Cissie." He was named after uncles on both side of his family, farmer William and newspaper editor Alton, perhaps foreshadowing his skill in gardening and writing.

Good-natured and bright, Brother patiently endured a lot of teasing and the nickname "Egg" because his head was oddly shaped, the result of it being compressed between his twin's knees in the womb. Once he got out of school and into the Army, no one really noticed, or cared.

Light-haired Brother, looking eerily like his son and grandson to come, Christopher Edward Miller and Zachary William Miller, is in the middle of this crew of sixth-graders at North Elementary School in Winston-Salem, N.C. Nearby was his good buddy Hobart Cheek.

Brother was 15 or 16 when this school photo was taken.

With friend and family boarder Doodle (Mildred Formyduval, who later married Harold Southern) during a visit home after serving in the U.S. Army in Europe in World War II.

In November 2011, first cousins David Edwards and Dee Ann Edwards were kind enough to take me on a driving tour of Winston-Salem. We tracked down several addresses our parents used to live at, most of them just north of downtown. This is 2925 Patterson Av., where our parents lived for a couple of years staring in 1935.

Here's 2519 Patterson Av., another house they lived in part of.

And here's Hanes High School (now something different), where Brother, Cissie and their siblings went to high school. Dad used to chant, rather goofily, "Knit one! Purl two! Hanes High! YOO HOO!"

He enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1944. It was to become his career.

Above and below, looking natty at a picnic at Hanging Rock State Park in 1948. Love the tie!

Sort of a "beat" look, don't you think?

Brother in 1951, a few years into his Army career.

Playing baseball in West Germany.

The Brother we (Pam, Chris and Cathy Miller) just knew as plain old Dad.