Frank & Annie Miller family

MILLER, NEWMAN, BRYCE

Posted By: S. Ferrall (email)
Date: 10/17/2006 at 07:26:45

Frank and Annie Miller and family
by Ken Bryce

My grandfather, Frank Miller, was born in 1872 in West Union, Iowa, U.S.A. He took training in Chicago with a large meat packer and was a butcher for part of his life.

He left U.S.A. and came to Canada where he met my grandmother, Margaret Annie Newman, who was born in Newport, Mommathshire, England. They were married in Carberry, Manitoba in 1907. Five children were born to this family, in Canada and U.S.A., as my grandparents moved several times back and forth between countries. Only my mother, Mrs. Thelma Bryce, and my grandparents lived in the Okotoks area. My grandparents, my mother, Uncle Bert and Aunt Ruby moved to Calgary in 1912.

Over the years my grandfather broke horses, operated a freight service, and moved dirt with horses until after World War II.

My grandparents moved to Okotoks in 1948 and lived on the main street where Mrs. Linton now lives. They moved up on top of the hill when only a few houses and the high school were there. During this time my grandad bought five or six acres of swampy brush land at the east end of Okotoks. The land was very wet and he cleared it by hand and pulled stumps and broke it with horses. My grandad had a large market garden on this property. This is now where several homes and the large apartments are at the east end of town.

He sold the property on the top of the hill to Mr. Burns Mackenzie and moved a house on the property at the east end of town.

My grandmother went blind. She died in 1952. My grandad died in his home in Okotoks in 1955. After his death, the property was purchased by Russ Fullerton. It is now being developed for housing.

-source: A Century of Memories Okotoks and District; Calgary: Okotoks and District Historical Society, no date
pg. 420