Wesley Washington Miller

1883 - 1940

This is Wesley Washington Miller at age 2 years, 3 months

Little is known about my grandfather Wesley during his early life other than that he was an only child, or perhaps, the only surviving child. It is likely that he was raised in San Francisco (or Oakland) where great grandfather Christopher had his jewelry and watch making business.

Grandfather Wesley Miller as a young man. I find it interesting that
his dark featuresare very much like his mother’s.

Nothing is known about how he came to know my grandmother, Lola.

What I do know about him comes primarily from stories that my mother used to tell me about him when I was a child. It’s clear that my mother adored her father; perhaps, some of this adoration was the result of her mother leaving the family when my mother was twelve.

I’ve already mentioned some of these facts in other sections referring to my mother and her siblings, so please bear with me if I become redundant.

From what my mother and Uncle George Hansen old me, my great grandfather Christopher obtained the Main Prairie farm property either through his second marriage to Adelheid or through a land trade involving property in Oakland. In any event, he obtained the property, and, most likely, gave it to Wesley perhaps as a wedding present.

From what I learned from my mother, my grandfather didn’t have any farming experience when he and my grandmother moved into the house that had served as a hotel for farmers bringing their grain down to the slough for loading onto the schooners.

It’s easy to imagine that this was a challenging and hard life for two “city mice,” my grandparents. In any event, my grandfather learned how to raise sheep to earn a livelihood. Later, according to my mother, he was one of the first farmers in the Sacramento Valley to experiment growing rice.

My mother always characterized her father as somewhat of a self-taught scholar. I don’t know how truc this was, but, most likely, he had an inquisitive mind, and spend a fair amount of time delving into astrology.

My mother told me that during lambing season, my grandfather would go out in the night and bring home the orphan and rejected newborn lambs to be warmed in the oven of the kitchen stove. I guess that this was just part of the hard, never-ending job of farm life.

The sheep ranch was located about twelve miles south of the town of Dixon, and fairly isolated. There was a one-room school in the area where my mother and her sister and brother went to school, evidently with some nearby children. On the whole, however, it must have been an isolated existence, especially for my grandmother with three little children. It’s not that surprising that she found a way to leave that place and that life.

I’ve already mentioned the sale of the ranch in 1920 when my mother was twelve. It’s interesting to note that Bonnie (Lillian) was listed as grandfather’s wife on the deed of sale. That marriage must have occurred not too long after my grandmother’s departure and divorce.

As you already know, the family moved back to Oakland. I don’t know where except that it was near Lake Merritt in the downtown area. Life went on. My mother finished elementary school and attended high school.

My grandfather took a job as a conductor on the key system, an electric train that provided public transit. Later, when the San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge was build around 1937, the trains ran on the lower deck back and forth to San Francisco.

I don’t wish to seem too critical, but it seemed that my grandfather never was able to become established in some trade or business. I don’t know his circumstances. On the other hand, my great grandfather had seemed to accumulate some property and ran a successful business for an extended time. What ever happened to that money? Was it spirited away by his widow?

My only contact with my grandfather that I’m aware of is contained in an old home movie where he is holding me and clowning around. I was probably about a year old.

He died of the results of a heart attack in 1940 and is buried in the Mountain View Cemetery, the same as his parents and Eileen and Uncle George. My mother said that he experienced “visions” during the last days of his life. She seemed to think that this somehow tied back to his experiences with astrology. I do know for a fact that he left his children with no useful earthly possessions, just fond memories.

This is a picture of my grandfather, Weslie, and, most likely, his second wife Bonnie.
I guess that this was taken at Aunt Eileen’s home in Livermore.