(EDITOR’S NOTE: The Luminary wishes to thank the following descendants of Robert Miller for their assistance in this series of articles: Joanne (Miller) Fullmer, Kristi Lopuski, Doris (Claudfelter) Yeager, Debra (Breon) Van Voorst, and John Miller. A special thank you to Doris and John for providing some of the historical sources that were used in the articles.)

By the time Robert Miller and his son Claude Miller opened the Miller Desk Company in 1930, they brought a lot of experience from their years at the Montgomery Table Works, where Robert Miller was part owner.

Joanne (Miller) Fullmer’s father was Claude Miller. She is the last surviving grandchild of Robert Miller. Her mother’s maiden name was Maude Soars, and she was employed as a typist at the Montgomery Table Works. While at the factory, she met Claude Miller who worked in the accounting department.

After the Miller Desk Company opened, Fullmer fondly recalls her visits to the factory when she was little. “I remember playing in the shaving room, with the shavings from all the wood that was being sanded off. They used to let me play in there. I used to play in there for hours, I loved it. I made curls and all kinds of things. It smelled so good in there, I can still remember the smell to this day. I was about six or seven, I suppose.”

A booklet from the Miller Desk Company shows that the factory made flat top desks, typewriter desks, secretarial desks, salesman’s desks, home desks, office tables, telephone stands, waste baskets, and costumers (clothes trees). The secretary desk was advertised as “patent applied for” and went on to describe that it had a movable mechanism for raising and lowering a typewriter. After giving a description on how to operate it, it said, “The machine is then lowered and pushed back into to the pedestal.”

Descriptions of other desks said that they were made from American walnut and the drawers had dovetail construction. The center drawers came with built-in pen and pencil trays.

The most expensive item listed was a 66×36 inch flat top desk, priced at $43.00. While the list wasn’t dated, when the factory opened in 1930, it was the modern equivalent of $784.56 cents. The least expensive desk was a salesman’s desk for $11.50 ($209.82 today). Some of the lesser expensive items included a wastebasket for $5.00 ($91.23 today), a costumer for $7.00 ($127.72), and a telephone table for $7.50 ($136.84).

A note on the cover of the price list says, “Back panels can be furnished at 75 cents and book rails at 50 cents per desk additional.” In today’s money that’s $13.68 and $9.12, respectively.

When Robert wasn’t working, he loved spending time playing music with his family. Robert’s great-granddaughter, Doris (Claudfelter) Yeager, shared that he and his wife Flora raised a family that had musical talent, and that their home, “was the site of Sunday afternoon musicals that were performed by the Miller, Grady, and Breon children during the 1930s,” referring to the couple’s grandchildren. She also said her mother, Elizabeth Grady, as well as her siblings, were all piano players.

Yeager said that in addition to Robert playing the trumpet, other family members played piano, trombone, saxophone, violin, drums, and clarinet. Debra Breon Van Voorst’s grandmother was Rob’s daughter Nellie Miller. Nellie married Boyd Breon, and they had four children, Dick (Debra’s father), Eleanor, Maxine, and Marjorie (called Marnie). She said that her father played the trumpet, and her aunt Maxine played piano, violin, organ, and accordion. Debra also shared that her aunt Eva Miller (Rob’s daughter) was a violinist.

These musical Sunday afternoons after church were a happy time for the family, Yeager said. Although Yeager didn’t have the opportunity to meet her great-grandfather, she happily shared the good memories that had been passed down to her. “He was a very hard worker, and a very loving type of man.”

Joanne Fullmer said that her father Claude played the trumpet, as well as her grandfather. She commented that there were lots of instrumentalists in the family. Her older brother Bud Miller was a clarinetist. “We used to get together for picnics and things like that, and we had an orchestra of just family. I was a kid that tap danced when they played.” She added that although she was too little to play an instrument at the family gatherings while her grandfather was living, she later learned clarinet and little bit of piano.

Aside from the family gatherings, members of the family performed in many bands. According to Joan Wheal Blank’s “Around Montgomery”, one of Montgomery’s early marching bands was the Citizen’s Military Band. Robert and Claude were both members, and Robert was the manager.

Yeager shared that her grandmother, Edna Miller Grady, played the organ for the Lutheran church on East Houston Avenue, and played the piano for silent films at the Lyceum Theatre in Montgomery.

Sadly, Rob became ill with cancer and a heart condition, so the Miller Desk Company was closed down, Yeager said. An undated news clipping from the Montgomery Mirror belonging to the Montgomery Area Historical Society says that Miller Desk Company closed in 1937.

Rob passed on March 14, 1940, at the age of 73. Flora followed in 1954. The couple are buried in Fairview Cemetery, Montgomery.

Despite the tragedy of his youth, Robert Milton Miller left a legacy of the hard work that it took to achieve the American dream. He raised a happy family, and helped to make his chosen community of Montgomery a better place.

Long after Robert Miller passed away, his musical legacy was carried on by his family.

Joanne’s brother Bud played clarinet for the consistory.

Doris Yeager’s mother, Elizabeth, was a jazz pianist in different jazz bands in Maryland.

Van Voorst said, that her grandparents Boyd and Nellie Miller Breon, moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee. She said that her grandfather Boyd passed away before she was born, but Nellie continued the Miller family tradition of musical Sunday afternoons with their children and grandchildren.

She also shared, “My father played trumpet throughout his life and joined a community band in Chattanooga. Richard Miller Breon was a war hero in World War II. He flew 32 missions and had been awarded the distinguished flying cross.” He played in dance bands in the Chattanooga area, and his younger sister, Maxine, joined his band as a piano player at the age of 16. Dick had a ten-piece dance band called The Blues Chasers, and the other was the Golden Orioles, also a blues band.

Maxine Breon was also an accomplished musician. She was an organist and choir director of her church, and she helped bring musical theatre to Chattanooga, Van Voorst shared. She played piano for the first musical theatre. She worked with Jim Nabors (most famous for playing Gomer Pyle on “The Andy Griffith Show” and “Gomer Pyle: USMC”) in a musical called “The Fireman’s Flame.”

Van Voorst has fond memories of musical afternoons at her grandmother Nellie’s house. “There were about 10 or 12 of us that would gather on Sundays at my grandmother’s house.”

She said that in addition to the above-mentioned members of the family, her Aunt Marnie also played the piano and organ. “Aunt Eva Miller [Robert’s daughter] played the violin, so we had trumpet, violin, organ, and piano, and we would dance and watch Lawrence Welk.”

John Miller’s grandfather was Claude M. Miller, and his father was Claude J. Miller. He said that his father, “played tenor sax in a professional dance band when I was a kid, but his main instrument was the clarinet, which he played in a couple of big bands.” He also added that there are still active musicians in his family. He said, “Our daughter Johanna played piano and violin, picked up concertina and guitar and sang with a semi-professional folk group “Shenandoah Run,” and said that his “son Ben played piano, organ, trombone and viola, plays in a couple of amateur symphony orchestras . . . [and] plays trombone professionally with an Italian street band in parades in Boston North End. My nephew Evan has a degree in saxophone performance from Temple University.”

Van Voorst said, “The love of music still persists through all the generations.”