For our final week of the Sepia Saturday theme, “From Here to There,” I dug out my photos of the Miller Twins. These two boys were featured in a few photos labelled only as, “Miller Twins,” on the back and I figured that twin boys would be easy enough to find without knowing their first names or much other information about them! I assumed my great grandma Olga Powis lived near them and I assumed they’d be on the 1920 or 1930 census for a place to start. The batch of photos that look like this (size/shape/quality) are dated around then, so it gave me a good guessing range. Sure enough, I found an entry for twin boys Charles and William Miller who were born in 1918 on the 1930 census (ancestry.com link), sons of Merl Miller and Euphamie Lamb. Euphamie shows up in another photo (link to blog post) with her boys which is what helped wrap the whole thing up to what I feel is a fairly positive identification.
As far as a date for the photos, I assume they’re about 4 or 5 in the set of photos here, so we’re talking 1923 (+-2 years). The twins were born on March 14th 1918 in Coalport, Pennsylvania. William died 11 June 1944 while fighting in WWII and was buried in France, and Charles on 19 Feb 1998 in Pennsylvania. According to the 1920 census, they lived a matter of a few blocks from my great grandmother. By the 1930 census, they had moved about an hour away to Blacklick in Cambria County. To tie it into the theme, one of the photos shows the boys perched on the running board of a car. Together though, even though they’re not related, these photos are a sweet little snapshot into the lives of these twins and the details are wonderful – the matching shirts and pocket watches, the beloved pet dog, the wash on the line behind the boys, the car! I do hope to find some descendant or someone in the family line who might be interested in these, and I’m glad to have the chance to share them here. Looking forward to November’s new theme!
A collection of sweet photos. That must have been hard on Charles when his twin brother died in the war. It would have been hard on any two brothers, but twins are just that much closer, usually. But how great you found out who they were by name!