Janus Wayne Miller (My dad's dad) was born May 5, 1900 in Richfield, UT in the Miller home located 2 blocks west of the court house. I so enjoyed reading the life history he wrote. To have these stories written in his "voice" is a great blessing. It changes the way I want to approach my life history. Not only is it valuable to know the details and inspiring to learn of the struggles, it's heart warming to know a little of his humor and personality. I will be largely quoting from this history so will proceed with quotes and summaries in the first person from my Grandpa's perspective:
I was born a son of Hans Peter Miller Jr. and Emma Annette Agnes Christensen; but I was not the only fortunate one. My mother brought 10 of us into the world. Our father was the first male child born in Richfield, UT. Our mother was born in Benstrup, Denmark. She emigrated with her parents to UT. Our father's parents also emigrated from Denmark to UT.
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Janus on front left
Hans Peter Miller Jr. and Emma Annette Agnes Christensen with 8 of their children |
On January 21, 1906 my older brother, Lamont, and I had been sent over to a neighbor's to play while our baby sister, Emma, was making her appearance into the world. After playing for some time I opened the door and entered the house. The scene that met my eyes was my Father and oldest brother Arno sitting on the kitchen table with their faces buried in their hands and crying bitterly. When I asked them why they cried, I was told that I had a new baby sister, but in giving life to my sister, my mother had given her life, and that I wouldn't have a mother to talk to me now.
Then came lonely days and years for me, as well as the others of our family. With 8 children at home, everyone had to do their part. I was helping Imelda make "lumpy dick." I must have stirred too hard . The kettle tipped over and spilled down on my legs. That warmed me up good. I laid on the couch for days and time did the trick, and I kept eating lumpy dick mush for breakfast for many years to come.
June 26, 1907, Father married Sarah Ann Lazenby from Loa, Wayne County, UT. She was a good woman, but since each of us have our own personalities, her ways were not always as those of our mother. It took a lot of adjusting on both the children as well as Aunt Sarah's part. At that time we children often thought it was pretty hard for us, but since I have grown older I think that she had it doubly hard. Upon her marriage to our father she was presented with 7 children. She also commenced raising a family of her own.
During parts of the summer months, I spent time living with my sisters and their husbands in their respective homes. I was 8 yrs. old and it was my job to drive the cattle from their home in Scrabble Hard or Brooklyn, as it was properly called, up to Marysvale where they had several acres of excellent pasture ground. It bordered the Sevier River on its East side and ran to the foothills to the west. I rode a very trustworthy horse named Brownie. He would follow along back of the herd, going from one side to the other, and if a "Critter" stopped to browse a clump of grass, Brownie would bite them on their tail or rump.
On June 2, 1908 my father and Aunt Sarah drove me in a buggy pulled by a team of horses 45-50 miles to the Manti temple where I was baptized. That night we stayed at the home of friends of my father from his mission in Denmark. Their name was Petersen, and their eldest son had just returned from a mission in Honolulu, Hawaii. I was so impressed by the stories he related that from that time on I never gave up the hope and desire that some day I, too, could go to Hawaii.
In 1910 we moved onto my Father's farm in Venice, 5 miles north of Richfield, where my father lived the rest of his life. On June 6, 1912 I was accidentally shot with a "22" rifle through the shin bone of my left leg. We were camping in a sheep wagon near the Bertelsen Canal 4 miles south of Monroe, UT. The only bandage material we had was a cloth we used to dry our dishes. I bandaged my leg the best I could while Jack Naser, the lad handling the gun, saddled an old sore-footed mare, and we started for Monroe on a slow walk. The lead from that bullet is still in my leg. I'm keeping it there for a souvenir.
There was very little money to be had for a young fellow through those years. I worked farm jobs through harvest season. In January of 1919, my brother, LaMont, and his wife were living in Eureka, UT and invited me to come up. They thought I could get a job in one of the mines. While working in the mines I had a couple of close calls. Once where I was supposed to muck out a car, but the car was kept under this frightful rock. I felt terrible fear and ran back a little way to size the situation up. The fear left me somewhat, and I felt that I should go up close and throw my shovel out at the wall right back of where I had been working, for the rock looked shattered. I did this, and no sooner did the shovel strike the wall when the whole ceiling of the mine around where I had been working fell in. Had I bumped that wall while working, I would have been crushed by the falling rock. I didn't work too long in the mine for several old miners would tell me to get out of the mine and find work outside before it was too late. Mine work was very unhealthy.
In the summer I went to work for Roy Nelson at a two man sawmill. As an off bearer it was my duty to hold the plank that was being ripped with the saw to keep it pulled away so that it would not fall into the saw when it sawed free. But one instance there was not power enough to saw it on through, so Roy pulled the log back from the saw, and my hand went with it. But you know, that saw never even growled, as it ripped through the first joint of the middle finger on my right hand. Well, I stopped saw milling and went back to farm work.
I had a desire to serve a mission. In the fall of 1919, I left my Harley Davidson Motorcycle that I had bought with my brother home and rode on horseback to have a talk with the bishop. He said, "Yes, Brother Miller, I think you are worthy to go on a mission, but have you got the money?" I told him "No, I didn't have the money, but I had always been taught that where there was a will there was a way." As I still had that yearning hope within me, I asked the bishop if one could go to a place of his own choosing, or did the church authorities send missionaries where they saw fit. The bishop answered that since I had volunteered to go, he thought I might have a preference. Then I said that I was willing to go wherever they saw fit to send me, but I would like to go to Hawaii or New Zealand. In due time my call came for Hawaii. The Lord had granted me my long hoped for desire. Now I had to make things count.
The state was graveling the highway. I got a job with my team of horses loading gravel trucks. I read the Book of Mormon through while on this job. I sold my wagon, a double disc plow, and my cows. I sold my motorcycle. My brother and sister, John and Carrie, gave me $50.00. Willie and Imelda gave a benefit party, and all in all I had enough money to take me to Hawaii and pay my expenses for 1 1/2 years. More than once I got down to my last 50 cents, but I never went hungry, nor did the Lord ever let me go in need. My brothers and sisters and friends sent money to me, and the Venice Ward sent me a check one Christmas. My dear old Grandmother--my father's mother, got a pension each month in the amount of $10.00 and I am sure that she sent me more of this money than she kept for herself.
I arrived in Pearl Harbor April 6, 1920. The following day I was sent to Laie to labor in the temple Here I remained until July 16 when I was assigned to labor in the Hilo Conference on the Island of Hawaii. I served here for 2 years.
The Lord was indeed good to me. Shortly before I left my home for the mission field, Patriarch Joseph S. Horn gave me a blessing wherein he promised me health and strength--that I would travel in peace and safety, whether by land or by sea; but he also said that Lucifer would try to stop me from finishing my work, but if I was faithful, I would be blessed, and would fulfill an honorable mission and return home to my family and friends.
Now, as I have stated, before leaving for the mission field, I had contracted the flu, as did the rest of the family, but I thought I was over that, and all my life before that, I had had good health, but on arriving in the Islands, I became quite sick. I got to where I could not lie on my back, but only on my right side. I made several trips to the doctor. It seemed that something was pulling my shoulders together. I couldn't stand erect, and it was hard for me to breathe. I developed a cough which steadily got worse for well into the second year of my mission. By this time the other missionaries at the mission home were becoming afraid of me. They thought I had tuberculosis. One evening while holding a cottage meeting, I was asked to speak, but it seemed that with every word, I would have to cough. I had been worried for several months, and now I was discouraged. As Elder Amussen and I walked home that night, I told him that on the morrow I was going to write President Smith at Honolulu and ask for a change of field of labor to a different climate, or a release to go home.
The next morning, while standing before the mirror shaving, and thinking how I would word my letter to Pres. Smith, a voice from directly back of me said, "He who findeth his life shall lose it, but he who loseth his life for my sake the same shall find it." I turned to see who had spoken, but there was no one there. Again I [started to shave] when the same voice said again, "He who findeth his life shall lose it, but he who loseth his life for my sake the same shall find it." I finished my shaving, then went in to where Elder Amussen was and told him that I was not writing President Smith--that if necessary they could send me home in a box, but I was staying there until I was called to a different field. Within two weeks I was almost over my cough, and at present I am healthy and strong.
Another faith promoting incident: On the 10th of January, 1922, while in the process of tarring the roof of the mission home in Hilo, Elder Amussen and I had climbed up on the roof. Elder Amussen was sitting astride the ridge while I was working about two thirds of the way up the roof. When all of a sudden, it felt like someone had caught me by the bottom of my trouser legs and gave me a jerk. I turned a flip-flop and landed on my back over on the part that I had just tarred. It seemed to me that I just zipped down the roof, but to my astonishment, as my feet shot over the eves, I stopped abruptly. I turned over onto my hands and knees and looked up just as Elder Amussen said, "I knew you would not go off."
And so it went day after day, organizing branches reorganizing others, giving instructions as to this and that, preaching, teaching, baptising, administering to the sick, etc. As I had been writing to four of five different girls, I wondered which of them if any, might be the right one; so I made it a matter of prayer. On this night I dreamed that I was conducting a meeting, and as I sat on the stand watching the people come in a begin filling the benches all of them seemed to be Hawaiians. Then I looked down ghrough the building, and on the third row of benches to my right and about center, there sat a beautiful girl and something said to me, "She shall be your wife." I had met this girl just shortly before leaving for my mission. While attending the county fair at Richflield, UT her cousin, Pearl Chidester, introduced me to her. Her name was and is Ila Casto from Salina, UT.
I was then assigned again to work in the temple in Laie where I stayed until Feb. 13, 1923. I sailed to San Francisco, went south to Venice, CA and stayed a week with my Aunt Marie and visited with brothers Arno and Carlyle. From here I traveled on to Salt Lake City where I reported my return from duties of the church in Hawaii. On the 17th of March, I arrived back home, just four days short of three years from the time I left for my mission.
On arriving home I rented my father's farm and part of Pres. R. D. Young's farm, borrowed my father's model T. Ford and make a trip to Salina to see my dream girl. We were sealed as husband and wife in the Manti Temple on Sept. 12, 1923.
Our first child, Magdaline Lei Nomi (Pearl Wreath) was born Sept. 15, 1924. Late in July 1925 we made ready a model T Ford that we had bought and headed for California, where I hoped to find work. We were loaded to the bows, and some predicted that we would never get there. The roads were terrible. The highway through Beaver, UT was closed, and we had to go up through Panguitch, then take a wood road up over the mountain and down into Paragonah. The first night we made our bed among the rocks in the dark with no light. The reason that we pitched camp here was because our old Ford just wouldn't pull our load up that last steep pitch on the hill. Morning finally came, and we made ready to try again. Let me state here that we had made three attempts the night before, but the car would only go so far and stop, and I figured it was due to the fact that the old model T Ford had a gravity gas feed. The gas tank was under the front seat, making the gas tank lower than the engine when going up a steep hill. For that reason I thought maybe we could make it over the hill by going up backwards. When we were already to start, I told Mom, "I believe I'll try once more and see if the car will go up the hill." To our surprise, it went right up to the top, just as it should. Then, we knew why we couldn't get over it the night before, for, had we gotten to the top, we may have been there yet. Immediately from on top, the road went steep down the other side, and there, perhaps 20 or 30 feet down was a large pine tree, and the road made a sharp turn to the right to miss it. Had we gone over it in the dark of the night, we would have smashed right into it; so the Lord does provide, as he has done many times in my lifetime, for which I am grateful.
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| Ila and Magdalene |
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Grandpa and Grandma went on to have 5 children.
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| Robert, Janus, Jeanine, Magdalene, Donna, Milo |
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| Milo, Donna, Robert (Dad), Ila, Jeanine, Janus, Magdalene |
Grandpa's prized possession in life was his dog, Moss. Moss was an amazing little border collie that "spoke English" and helped Grandpa run the farm. Janus and Ila never had a lot of material wealth, but they were stalwart and faithful in their dedication to the church. They joyfully served in many different capacities and especially loved service in the Manti Visitor's center. They lived in a variety of places: UT, CA, OR, WA and even Missouri for a time. Grandpa said they always had wonderful neighbors. I think this means they must have been wonderful neighbors. I remember their place in Manti best and am happy that my father bought it from them so I can return to refresh my memories. I remember Grandpa milking cows in the barn with their tail tied to a hook to avoid getting flicked. I would take a little tin cup for Grandpa to fill with fresh milk for me to drink. He would kill errant bees by squishing them on the fronts to avoid getting stung by the backs, except this one time when he was driving and he accidently squished the back...ouch. There was a manure pile out by the barn that I could have lived without, but that's probably the secret to their nice garden. When I went to visit as a young girl, he would give me a great big twinkly eyed welcome saying, "There's my girl." Thank you for your legacy of faith, Grandpa.
