Barry Duane Miller

1936-2000

9^th McClure generation

Caroline Sue McClure

1941-2003

Photo:  Sue & Duane Miller & first five grandchildren 1986

 Barry Duane Miller was born 8 October 1936 in Sudan, Lamb Co., TX, the son of Evelyn Norena May Johnson (see JOHNSON) and adopted son of Vester Miller.  He was called Duane by his family but Barry by people he worked with.

 Duane had one half sister and one half brother.  Of his mother he wrote,  “I am grateful to her for life.  She made me rich, not with money, but love.  I have always had a full stomach, a warm place to sleep, someone to care if I’m there.  Mother had no shame; that belonged to others.  I remember Mother with love, and we have love in our family.  This apple fell close to her tree.”

Caroline Sue McClure was born 19 November 1941 in Grant Co., KY, the only daughter of Homer McClure and Callie Beach McClure.  Everyone called her Sue or Susie.

Sue and Duane were married in Covington, Kenton Co., KY, in August 1958.  They lived most of their married life in St. Bernard, Hamilton Co., OH.

They had a daughter and a son, then four grandsons and four granddaughters.

Duane died 25 March 2000 in Cincinnati, Hamilton Co., OH., after suffering for years with Parkinson’s disease and heart problems.   Very unexpectedly Sue died 9 January 2003 at the age of only 61.

At his request, Duane’s ashes were returned to his beloved Texas.  Sue’s ashes were placed on her father’s grave in Mt. Zion, Kentucky.

 * * * * *

Duane Miller loved his family, football, and TEXAS.  When he was watching a Texas team playing football on TV, there was no happier man.  His memories of his childhood in Texas inspired him to write his autobiography during the last few years of his life so his stories could be passed along to his children and grandchildren.

Duane lived with his mother’s parents for a few years after her divorce from Vester Miller.  His grandfather got a job as caretaker of a ranch and they lived there for two years.  There is no better way to tell Sue and Duane’s story than with Duane’s own words:

The ranch had 700 acres.  Grandpa was caretaker of over five hundred head of prime Texas beef on the hoof.  Two windmills pumped water for the ranch.  One sat between the house and stock pens; the other was out near the road on the other side of the pasture.  Grandpa built a slantroof lean-to shed he would use for a barn.  He put the high side up on the stock pen, and the low side he set on three posts, just to keep the roof off the ground. Grandpa bought a milk cow for our milk.  In the mornings, my job was to feed the cow.  Some days I climbed up on the fence to watch the sun rise.  Other days I went back to the house to help Grandma make breakfast, while Grandpa milked the cow. 

In February of 1941, we moved to the Blankenship place.  The farm was about three hundred acres at a crossroads south of Lockney.  This was a nice farm, and had a large pasture with a lake.  It also had a barn, a three-room house, a storm cellar, two ponds, as well as a windmill and a large garden plot.  The main crops, wheat and cotton, were raised by someone else.  Grandpa had cows, pigs, and a horse tank full of catfish.

Grandpa and Grandma could no longer keep themselves on the farm.  Mother came to visit and explained to me that I would have to live with her.  The time had come, and I accepted it.  One morning in August, 1942, Grandpa and I left the farm and drove to Littlefield.  Mother was married to Howard, and they were living in the same house my grandparents had rented on Dugan Avenue.  Howard Atwood was a good man and owned a recap tire business.  He did real well during the war, because rubber was hard to find.  I now had two siblings, a half-sister and a half-brother, Carolyn from Vester and Mother, Butch from Howard and Mother.  Including myself, there were three children in the family.

In 1950 Evelyn took her two children to live in northern Kentucky where she had a cousin. 

Christmas Eve 1951.  I came home late and found no one at home.  I knew Mother had been spending some time visiting with a lady she worked with.  I went up the street to where they lived.  Just by chance Mother was there.  It was just the start of some things to come.  The rest of my life was just beginning.

It was the first time I would meet the lady I would someday marry.  Sue was a little girl of ten.  That night her brother and I tried to put her doll house together.  We had it turned around, putting the kitchen floor in the living room of the doll house.

Duane served in the Army from 1954-1957.  He summed up that experience as follows: 

I enlisted in the Army to become a helicopter mechanic.  I wound up in cable splicing school.   That more or less describes my military career.

I was discharged from the Army in May 1957.  I had a thousand dollars saved up, which was a lot of money in 1957, and I wasn’t in any hurry to do anything.  But before long, I was down to $300.00 and I knew I had to get a job.   Homer said they were hiring at Nu-Maid, where he worked, so I went over there and they hired me a couple of days later.  I worked there for 36 years.   Homer told me once or twice I ought to try to get on at the telephone company, but I’d had enough of that in the Army.  I was up a pole or down a hole for three and a half years, and that was enough for me.  I wasn’t built for it.

He wrote beautifully of his relationship with Sue.

I first saw the lady when she was ten years old.  In seven more years, she had blossomed into a thriving, lovely, sweet person, someone who could make my heart jump.  She was attractive, someone I could fall in love with.  She is a good woman, one in ten thousand, someone to look up to and admire.  After thirty-six years of marriage, I hold her in the highest esteem.  Sue, above all things, is my best friend, the person nearest to my heart.

I love this pleasurable lady.  Her inviting charm is a stimulating source of pleasure.  My time with her has been well spent.  She is the best at making me feel at home.  There is nothing I would rather do than spend an evening with her.  From this intimate union, we have two children, a girl and a boy, with eight grandchildren.  A full family!  My wife, Caroline Sue, is truly my better half!

Sue and I got married in July of 1958 and for the first few months we lived in a little trailer in Constance, Kentucky.  

July 11, 1959.  It was late, almost midnight, when the nurse introduced me to the prettiest little red-head I had ever seen, still wrapped in a towel.  At that very moment her magic burned an indelible image onto my heart.  That was the night she became Daddy’s little pumpkin.  A lady now, she has become a beautiful reflection of her mother.  Looking at her, I find it hard to believe this lovely person is my daughter.  Then I take a look at the lady I married.  Pumpkin’s mother is my source of pride, and from that source I can see the miracle that has turned into our wonderful daughter, the likeness of her mother.  Both are thoughtful, sharing a loving kindness and a gracious manner, giving serious credit to their relationship as mother and daughter.

Was it just yesterday I rocked her bassinet?  She is married now with four children of her own, three strapping boys and one little brunette who is Grandpa’s little huggie muffin.  With her pretty little smile she tells me, “Grandpa, do you know where I got my blue eyes?  From you, Grandpa!”  The magic continues.  My life has been enriched, whole and complete, making me a king.  I am envious of no man.

 It was 2:30 on the morning of January 13, 1961.  Sue shook me awake from a restful sleep to take her to the hospital.  She accused me of not loving her because I stopped for gas.  Could I have loved her more if we had run out of gas?

Homer and Callie came to the hospital to keep our daughter for us until we could bring the baby home.  He was born around 9:00.  When I was given the chance to see Sue, she told me with love in her eyes, “Now you have your son.”  I had been more concerned with their health than either baby’s sex.  But I was a proud peacock the day he was born.

Duane wrote about family life with the two kids, and most movingly of the little grandson born prematurely and at high risk, but who had grown to be a healthy teenager.  Sue and Duane both loved and enjoyed the grandchildren, though half of them lived far away while their father was in the Air Force.

Now she’s Grandma Sue, a lady with a trim figure.  Since I have gotten sick, Grandma has become the family’s tower of strength.  To Grandpa, her husband of thirty-seven years, she is his sweetheart, inspiring his embrace and love.  Grandpa is a man in love with a lady above average.  Grandma is to him, his object of great pleasure.  Her love has been endearing.  Everything she does, she seems to learn by heart.  To her family she is beautiful.  The lady inspires love and admiration.  It’s what makes her attractive.  Her grandchildren gather around her every chance they have.  Grandma is an angel that appears in a bodily form, always willing to try and help anyone.  To most of the people who know her, Grandma Sue’s reflection is sacred.

Life has blessed me more than many people.  It’s not just luck, it’s having someone special to love you.  When Sue, the mother of my children, cast her spell over my heart, she gave me what some men only dream about, a warm, loving home!  We have tried to pass along that home life for our children, to provide them with the opportunity and the means to take care of themselves through the smooth and hard, meeting each unexpected demand.  We hope they will understand our feelings, to realize home is with your mate.  Sue gives me pleasure still from her spell.  Our house without her is empty.  Sue has the ability to have people like her.  I would like our life to go on forever, but there will come a day sudden and unexpected.  No one knows beforehand when our lives will cease to exist.  The one left must have the ability to go on.  My heart stays with Sue.  It’s hers to keep.

It seems that God takes care of children, fools, and fat old Texas boys.  It must be true.  I have always qualified for two.

Sue’s obituary in the Cincinnati Enquirer of 10 January 2003 read as follows:

MILLER, Caroline Sue (nee McClure) beloved wife of the late Barry D. Miller, dear daughter of Callie (Beach) McClure. … [her children and grandchildren were all named] … Her canine companions were Squat, Lucky and Butch.  She helped anyone in need and was a mother to all.  January 9, 2003, age 61.

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