A Thanksgiving Afternoon with My Granddad, Frank Miller

Frank Miller was a son of Newell Miller, a Union Cavalryman four years in the Civil War. My grandmother, Minnie Miller said to me several times, “Oh Doyle, the war, it was so horrible.”

My grandfather, Frank Miller, was afflicted with arthritis and blindness. When he was forty years of age, his knees were arthritic and if he walked for any distance, he walked with a cane. He was a great friend to me. He was an excellent sandlot baseball pitcher. His catcher went to play for the Detroit Tigers and Granddad was offered a minor league signing, but he had two daughters and a wife and he refused. Men that were twenty years my seniors, played baseball with me and they played with my grandfather, told me how good he was.

One of the things that I will always remember about Granddad was that he was an expert marksman with a 12-gauge shotgun. One Thanksgiving when I was about eighteen, Grandpa and Grandma (that’s what I called them) were at our house for a Thanksgiving meal. After we had finished our typical Thanksgiving meal of turkey and all that went with it, Grandpa said, “Doyle, would you go hunting with me?” And we did, and my dad, Lyle Davidson went with us. We lived on a forty acre farm with eighty acres on our north, prairie with no buildings, and forty acres to our west on my friends’, which made 160 acres that I could hunt on any time. There was also another thousand that I could also hunt on any time because everyone knew me and trusted me.

There were bobwhite quail in that area and as Grandpa and Dad and I walked along a fence row, a single quail rose up and Granddad—so quick, with eyes that were bad, and me with him—one single quail, one shot with a twelve-gauge, hammer shotgun; that quail fell to the ground. Granddad was so quick with his hands, I’m sure that is where I got my quick hands.

My cousin, Jimmy Wallace has that shotgun and he deserves to have it. Jimmy and I are the only two grandsons of Frank, I’m the older.

Oh, but how Granddad Frank Miller could shoot with a twelve-gauge shot gun! I suppose it should be expected, his father Newell Miller was a Cavalryman in the Civil War.

I will always thank God for that Thanksgiving afternoon to watch him shoot that quail.

God Bless,
Doyle Davidson
Servant and apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ

Posting Index