Check out this new video by the American Battlefield Trust (proud member!) just published today.
Imagine having your life spared all because you carried a Bible in your breast pocket! The scene, of course, is the famous Dunker Church in Sharpsburg, Maryland. My great-great grandfather, John Miller, lived right on the Antietam Creek and worshipped at this very meeting hall during the Civil War. They were known as "Dunkers" because of their practice of full water baptism. The Battle of Antietam began in the David Miller Cornfield, which saw severe fighting that day. Apparently the John Miller farm (John and David were brothers) was spared any actual combat. This is the John Miller house as it looks today. It was built in the 1840s.
And here's a great aerial view of the farm. For reasons unknown to me, John Miller's descendants left Sharpsburg to settle in Missouri and then in Montana. My grandmother Marguerite Miller was born in Montana but moved to Hawaii in the early 1900s, where she met and married my grandfather, Charles Black. In 1918 they had a son named John, who was my father. John had a brother named David, hence my name.
So grateful to God to have this knowledge of the people from whom I descended. I love the thought of keeping my ancestors alive, even if it's only in my heart!