My dad, Oscar Daniel Miller, like most of his ancestors, grew up on the family farm with many brothers and sisters.  At an early age he fractured a leg which kept him on crutches for a long time and which came close to being amputated when what was then called tuberculosis of the bone set in.  Except for that traumatic event, I am sure that his boyhood was spent in almost the same manner as my own.  He went to the same school and  did the same kind of farm chores as I in my youth.  Probably the only major differences were that his father (Levi) did not have an automobile to take his children to town on Saturday nights, nor did his house have inside plumbing.  However, I do remember that there was a well in the house, and over it was a hand pump which poured directly into the kitchen sink.  Following in the footsteps of his elders, Dad attended Mt. Union college and taught school.  One school in which he taught was Uniontown, the one-room school where both he and I received our primary education.  He also learned the trade of carpentry and built a number of houses in Alliance.  He often worked at carpentry in the North during the summer and in Florida during the winter.  He was single until his late thirties.   It was in about 1900 when he owned one of the first cars in Alliance, a one-cylinder Cadillac. 

          Meanwhile, in Wilkinsburg, PA, Mary (Maude) O'Leary was spending her youth as a dressmaker.  But a friend of hers, Margaret Gaskill, had married a man named John Hartzell and they lived near North Benton.   Margaret knew my dad and had asked Maude to come down to North Benton and meet "this fine young fellow" (These are the words of Aunt Celia).  Soon Dad was on the way to Wilkinsburg and they were married on July 28, 1915 at St. James Catholic Church.  Not without his pledge, of course, that he would see to it that the children would be raised as Catholics, for among the O'Learys, that was the only condition under which one could marry a "non-catholic."

           Upon returning to Alliance, they set up housekeeping in an apartment on West Main Street.  Dad had purchased some of the acreage of the family farm and then set about building the fine house to which he would take his new bride.  This was the first house with indoor plumbing for miles around.  He erected a windmill to provide the water under pressure.  The floors and door frames were made from fine oak milled from the farm itself.  In 1930, fifteen years after they were married, he was able to persuade the Ohio Public Service Company to take back some of their preferred stock that he had earlier purchased in return for extending the power lines up to our farm.  That was quite a day when we were able to clean up the old kerosene lamps for the last time and marvel at the convenience of electric lights!  This marked the Miller home as one of the top homes in the area, the only one for miles around with electric power, indoor plumbing, and a magneto telephone on the wall.  

          Were my parents happy?   My first inclination is to say no, certainly not as happy as I.  Expressions of happiness or love were never a part of their farm vocabulary.  But I am sure that everyone sees life through his or her unique eyes at that particular time.  My father, as a young single man until nearly 40, must have enjoyed a good life.  Wintering in Florida, driving his one-cylinder Cadillac in Alliance, undoubtedly scaring the buggy horses out of their wits, he probably had everything he wanted.  My mother, one of eight sisters known for their beauty and their "beaus" in Wilkinsburg, also probably had everything she needed, but I suspect that before she married at 35 she was wondering how she would spend her later years. 

          After they were married, the accomplishments of creating a good home and farm must have been rewarding.   They were the result of long hours of hard work, and if that which is worked for hardest is most appreciated, then they must have been very content with what they had.   They lived through the Great Depression, which started in 1929.  Rich people destroyed by the Financial Crash were jumping out from the windows of skyscrapers in New York City and Chicago.  Unemployment was rampant.  Newspapers showed photos of soup kitchens and people standing in bread lines.   But back on the farm, even though Dad's records show many a month when the cash income was less than $50, we had everything we needed.  A slate roof over our head, a cellar full of potatoes, vegetables, fruit, Mason jars filled with canned corn, peas, beans, beef, and other good things to eat.  Hams and  bacon sugar-curing in the attic.  A slate roof also over the big red barn, in it a dozen milk cattle, a team of horses.   Animals on their way to being next year's beef, pork, lamb, and chicken.   A granary full of wheat, oats, and corn.  Hay mows filled to the top to feed the animals.  We had economic security, which in those times was certainly the thing about which most people were most concerned.

          Farming could not fully occupy my father's mind.  He was well read and often wrote letters to important political people.  I remember a letter from Cordell Hull, the U. S. Secretary of State, answering my father's suggestions about how the League of Nations should be structured.  Unfortunately, Dad was bored talking with the neighbors about routine farm problems.  He was not a very social person.  He preferred to read. 

          In addition to operating the farm, Dad found time to build a house in Alliance, to which he would retire many years later.  He also served as Secretary-Treasurer of the Smith Township Aid Society, a non-profit fire insurance company to which most of the farmers in Smith Township belonged.  There were no insurance premiums, but whenever anyone had a fire, an assessment was made and everyone chipped in.   What prevented anyone from dropping out of the Society when somebody's barn burned down and an assessment was announced?  Only their sense of moral obligation.  But in those days that was enough.

          Sundays were observed as the Sabbath.   When the weather was so cold that the old model T Ford would not start, we would hitch up a horse and pull it around the yard until ignition took place.  When we reached Alliance, Mother and the boys went to Catholic Mass and Sunday School, while Dad went to the Presbyterian Church about two blocks away.  When we returned home, over Sunday dinner Dad would sometimes review for our benefit the sermon or the Sunday School lesson of the day.  

          When the boys grew up and each in turn went to serve in World War II, Dad and Mother quit farming and moved into the house in Alliance.    In 1951, Dad fell from a ladder while working on the roof.  He never fully recovered, dying in early 1952 at age 76.  Mother lived until age 87, spending most of her last years with brother Jim and his wife Rosemary.