In memory of George and Philip Miller In the 1930s in the little farm town of Wells, Kansas, my paternal grandfather, George Miller operated a Chevrolet car dealership and a garage and gas station. In the early 1940s, George sold the business to his oldest son, my uncle, Philip Miller, and moved to the county seat, Minneapolis, Kansas, to become the John Deere dealer. George also continued to farm in Ottawa County all his life, owning at least two large farms. He "retired" from the farm implements business to farm rich Solomon Valley river bottom land just outside of Bennington, Kansas. He and my grandmother Miller used to winter over in Corpus Christie, Texas, where it was warm and the fishing was good. George loved fishing and tried to teach us boys, but we unfortunately found it boring and therefore probably denied ourselves of much of his company. In their later years, they retired to Moody House in Galveston, Texas. He died of a heart attack at age 75. My grandfather was a very shrewd maker of business deals; although he was scrupulously honest in all things. A lot of people maintained hard feelings toward him, feeling that they had been shorted in the deals somehow. Nevertheless, the truth is that he helped out a great many of those same people in the hard times; although they never knew the help came from him. My relatives on my Mother's side--the Comforts, Healds, and Yonallys--were among those disapproves and recipients of his quiet generosity. My Uncle Philip continued to operate the garage business in Wells until the early 1950s, when he sold it and moved to Galveston, Texas, to own and operate a furniture store, which he purchased from other relatives. He was a successful businessman until his retirement, when he moved from Texas to New Mexico. The picture above represents my grandfather, George Miller, hauling gas out to some farmers during harvest time in the 1930s. However, I really had my Uncle Philip more in mind. During WWII, he really wanted to join one of the military services, but the Draft Board deemed him more valuable where he was; keeping farm machinery running to produce food for the war effort. Still, I know it bothered him that so many of his generation served and he did not. My own father, Chester, joined the USAAF in 1942 as a Chaplain. Later on, he made the military a career by remaining in what became the USAF. We only saw him every three or four years for a week or two thereafter and in 1946 my parents divorced (at his request). We had been living in the "thumb" of Michigan, but my mother and grandmother Comfort, who lived with us, wanted to return to Kansas. So we did. I first came to know Philip while he still had the Wells Garage, when we came back to Kansas in 1947. He always seemed a bit distant and disapproving to my eleven year old mind, but I was always impressed at how hard he working. Distant or not, he always saw to it that my brother and I got a free icy cold pop from the pop machine in his office. On hot Kansas Julys, that was a rare and wonderful treat! Many years later, as a middle-aged man, I learned from my mother that Uncle Philip had always looked out for us boys. My father, his younger brother, was an alcoholic and later on a drug addict and most definitely an absentee father. Eventually, he was dismissed from the service just a couple of years short of retirement because of his drinking. Philip loved Chester and helped him adjust to civilian life by giving him a job in his furniture store and later helping him purchase another furniture business of his own. CONTINUED BELOW IN COMMENTS: