My maternal forebears continue to elude me. I spent much of yesterday determined to find the German side of the family that my mother always spoke so highly of, concentrating on the parents of her paternal grandfather, George Miller. According to the census records, George's parents both came from Germany, so i've begun to suspect that my mother's recollection of her German grandparents was off by a generation. That side of the family seems to have married young, so it's not unlikely that she might have spent some time with her great grandparents when she was little. Her stories were too geographically specific to be fanciful (like some of those fabulous yarns of my father). She didn't just say they were German: the (great?) grandmother, as already noted, came from Hamburg and spoke high German; her husband was from Alsace and supposedly looked French but spoke some form of German (probably an Alsatian dialect). I'm looking forward to the day when I track down the emigration records of my ancestors and can start further unraveling some of these complicated histories.
Despite my obsessive search of old census records, at the end of the day I'd discovered very little about my ancestors. I did, however, learn something about myself: i desperately long to be descended from people with interesting names. At one point i came across a woman named Cunigunda Miller and found myself praying: "Dear god, please, please let her be my great grandmother! I can't take another Mary or Annie." Alas, it was not to be. Neither was young Orpheus Miller. But i haven't given up hope.
George Miller dedicated most of his life to the production of sweet and fattening treats. His occupation at the time of the 1900 census was running an "ice cream saloon;" the marble-top tables from his sweet shop can still be found in a few family living rooms. In 1910 he was listed as a confectionery manufacturer. The 1920 record is difficult to read, but as nearly as i can make out, it says that he was a laborer for an ice cream supplier. In her inimitable way, Aunt Eleanor used to say that her grandfather was the reason she'd always been chubby. When she was little, she explained, he'd sit her on the counter and have her taste-test the latest batch of chocolate candies that he'd made. "Here, bunch [short for honeybunch], try this one," he'd say. And of course she did. I love the idea of having ancestors who made ice cream and candy for a living. Truth be told, if i'd been born forty years earlier, i'd have been right up there on the counter with Aunt Ellie, sampling the chocolates.
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| Peter (left) and George (right) Miller making a fresh batch of ice cream. I just wish they looked like they were enjoying themselves a bit more. |
Judging from his expression in this photograph, young Peter Miller was not all that thrilled with the family business, and he did not long remain in the ice cream and confectionery trade. The 1900 census lists the occupation of the fourteen-year-old Peter as candymaker, but after that he went on to work at a variety of other jobs. By 1910, he was married, the father of two (with a third on the way), and working as an automobile finisher. I never knew that the early auto industry had a presence in Philadelphia, but after extensive research (oh, okay, a thirty-second Google search), i've learned that Packard was building cars in Philly at the time. The Packard Motor Car Building on North Broad Street, which is now a luxury apartment building, opened in 1910 as an assembly plant and showroom. So Grandpop went from making chocolaty sweets to building sweet rides.
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| 1910 Packard Roadster |
According to his draft card, in 1918 Peter was working as a floorman at The Philadelphia Inquirer. Two years later, he was back working with his father as an ice cream supplier. By 1930, he had a job as a guard at Eastern State Penitentiary, at least i assume that's where he was since his job is described on the census as a penitentiary (rather than prison) guard. Al Capone was incarcerated at Eastern State for eight months during 1929-30, so it's possible that they crossed paths. Now there's a thought worth entertaining!
At some point, my grandfather lost his job at the penitentiary under circumstances that are a bit murky, and i'm not sure what he did afterwards. He passed away in 1940.
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