Ben H. Millar’s Amazing Leather Notebook!!

Last October when my Ben (DiGregorio) and I were finishing up our teardrop camping trip around the Southwest, Texas and the Midwest visiting relatives and National Parks, we were finally headed back home and stopped briefly in Las Vegas to say hello to my Dad’s cousin, Edgar Millar.  He had alerted me that he wanted to give me a notebook that had been his Dad’s.  

It was great to see Ed for the first time in many years — Now 92, he spent most of his adult life as a musician (saxophone) and well-known radio DJ (“Easy Ed”), specializing in jazz recordings.  He said, “I don’t know who half the people in this book are, but with the work you’ve been doing you’ll know.  I want you to have it.”  

He handed me an amazing aged leather 3-ring notebook that his father, Benjamin Harrison Millar (my Great Uncle Ben, 1888-1975), had put together and kept up over the years — and we both marvelled over the detail and care that Uncle Ben had put into the work — making sure that all photographs were identified, with pages for each family group… all typed single-spaced on a trusty old typewriter, and there were letters, photographs, documents, obituaries.  He seems to have started the project in 1925 and continued until close to the time of his death in 1975.

The first page is the letter that started it all —

— a copy of a 1912 letter addressed to Ben’s Great Aunt Rosie Millar Wade of Denver, Colorado, about the earliest known Millar descendent.  The letter is from Clarence E. Millar of Augusta, Kalamazoo, Michigan — who was the son of Rosie’s cousin Orville I. Millar Jr.  Clarence was asking for Rosie’s help in identifying names, dates and stories of ancestors.  And she subsequently sent the letter on to Ben in Wichita in 1925, two years before she died at age 85.

Benjamin Harrison Millar in 1911– 23 years old, Wichita, Kansas

 

 

 

 

 

 

There will be more about Ben in later posts, but here’s what he wrote about himself in this notebook:

 

 

 

 

… and to keep with the “Jack and Viola” theme of this blog, here’s a photo of the Grenville Ansel Millar family at home at 305 South Volutsia, Wichita, Kansas, in 1897.  Viola Millar (later Slattery) is the little girl between her father and mother, and her brother Benjamin Harrison Millar is the boy standing to the right of his father.

So thanks, Ed, for conserving your father’s work and for allowing me to pass it on, in the spirit of Ben, Rosie, Clarence and others!

Edgar Lee Millar, Las Vegas, Nevada

Benjamin Harrison Millar, son Edgar Lee Millar and wife Fannie Gelbach Millar; 17 Dec 1944, before Edgar’s embarkment overseas in WWII.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Millar Notebook is now fully scanned (103 pages!) — and it’s a pretty big computer file.  Some of the handwritten letters as well as news articles have been transcribed to make them easier to read.   I’ll be happy to make the scanned version available to interested cousins.  Just let me know!   — Kerry

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