5 



CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH OF JOHN A. MILLER 



BaumJ I wanted to get a little biographical information 

 from you. Where did you come from? 



Miller: Mother was a blue blood, born in Hamburg, Germany, 

 and Father was a peasant, born in Denmark. Mother 

 came here with her uncle. Her father was the post- 

 master of Hamburg > and she came here with her uncle 

 to Chicago about 1891 in preparation for the World's 

 Fair in 1892. Germany took over Denmark in 1870, 

 and when Dad was nearly twenty years of age he 

 didn't want any of this military conscription by 

 Germany; he got on a saltpeter boat somewhere along 

 the German river near Hamburg. He came out of the 

 province known as Schleswig-Holstein, and he then 

 went as far as Chile and absconded from the vessel. 

 He then worked his way over a period of several years 

 to North Carolina and there stayed the customary 

 period to get his first papers. At the time that 

 he did the judge said, "You are now to be an 

 American citizen and you should have an American 



