Suzanne's Mom's Blog

Life can present some surprising twists. Frederick Miller, who spent his childhood in Gretna, Virginia, was naturally excited to buy a beautiful property there after he grew up and returned to the area. But a mysterious force must have also been at work.

As Joe Helm reported at the Washington Post last month, “There was so much Fredrick Miller didn’t know about the handsome house here on Riceville Road.

“He grew up just a half-mile away and rode past it on his school bus every day. It was hard to miss. The home’s Gothic revival gables, six chimneys, diamond-paned windows and sweeping lawn were as distinctive a sight as was to be seen in this rural southern Virginia community. But Miller, 56, an Air Force veteran who now lives in California, didn’t give it much thought. …

“Two years ago, when his sister called to say the estate was for sale, he jumped on it. He’d been looking, pulled home to the place he left at 18. His roots were deep in this part of Pittsylvania County, and he wanted a place where his vast extended family, many of whom still live nearby, could gather.

“The handsome house set on a rise had a name, it turned out. Sharswood. And Sharswood had a history. And its history had everything to do with Miller.

“Slavery wasn’t something people talked much about in this part of Virginia when Miller was growing up in the 1970s and 1980s. And other than a few brief mentions in school, it wasn’t taught much, either.

“The only time he remembers the subject coming up was when Alex Haley’s miniseries, ‘Roots,’ was broadcast in 1977. …

“Miller assumed his ancestors had been enslaved. But where and when and by whom were questions that were left unasked and unanswered.

“ ‘People didn’t want to talk about this stuff because it was too painful,’ said Dexter Miller, 60, a cousin of Fredrick’s who lives in Java. … Another cousin, Marian Keyes, who taught first in segregated schools and later in integrated schools from 1959 to 1990, said that for a long time there was little teaching about slavery in Pittsylvania County.

“ ‘We weren’t really allowed to even talk about it back then,’ said Keyes, who turns 90 this year and lives in Chatham. ‘We weren’t even allowed to do much about the Civil War and all of that kind of stuff, really.’

“Even outside of school, when she was growing up, Keyes said, the subject of slavery was avoided. ‘I just thought everything was normal,’ she said, ‘because that was the way of life.’ …

“It wasn’t until after Fredrick Miller bought Sharswood in May 2020 that its past started coming into focus. That’s when his sister, Karen Dixon-Rexroth and their cousins Sonya Womack-Miranda and Dexter Miller doubled down on researching their family history.

“What neither Fredrick Miller nor his sister knew at the time was that the property had once been a 2,000-acre plantation, whose owners before and during the Civil War were Charles Edwin Miller and Nathaniel Crenshaw Miller.

“Miller.

“Fredrick Miller and so many members of his extended family were born and grew up in the shadow of Sharswood — and perhaps it was a clue to a deeper connection. It wasn’t uncommon after emancipation for formerly enslaved people to take the last names of their enslavers. But establishing the link required more research. …

“They pored over court and real estate records, examined census data and revisited family tales passed down over generations. As the puzzle pieces connected, a clearer picture emerged. Sarah Miller, great-grandmother to Fredrick, Karen and Dexter, and great-great-grandmother to Sonya, died in 1949 at 81. From her death certificate, they learned that Sarah’s parents were Violet and David Miller.

“The 1860 Census does not list enslaved people by name, only by gender and age. In the 1870 Census, however, Violet and David Miller lived just a short distance from Sharswood. Between the many documents that the descendants of Sarah Miller have obtained, the fragments of family oral history they’ve sewn together and the proximity of the family to the plantation, they are certain that Violet and David Miller were among those enslaved at Sharswood.

“More clues continue to emerge. An entry in the Virginia Slave Births Index uncovered this month by [Karice Luck-Brimmer, who works in community outreach with Virginia Humanities in Pittsylvania County] shows that a boy named Samuel was born to Violet in Pittsylvania County on May 9, 1864. N.C. Miller is listed as the enslaver. In the 1870 Census record for Violet and David Miller, Samuel, age 5, is listed as a member of the household. Sarah, his youngest sister, also is listed as a member of the household. She would have been 2, although no age is given for her in the record.

“The newly discovered document ‘hands-down places them on the plantation,’ Womack-Miranda said after seeing the entry. …

“For Fredrick Miller, the 10.5-acre-estate he’d purchased for $225,000 ended up not being just a future gathering spot for the family, but also its first traceable point in the United States — an astonishing revelation for him. It also left him thinking about family history and the absence of that history for many people like him.

“ ‘You’ve got to know where you come from,’ he said in a phone interview from his California home. ‘You’ve got to know where you come from. It’s unfortunate that a lot of us don’t.’

“In an undated photo of Sarah that family members have shared with one another, the mother of seven wears wire-rimmed glasses and faces the camera with a somber expression. When he looks at the photo of his great-grandmother, Fredrick Miller sees sadness in her face. But, he hopes, maybe this purchase has brought some redemption.

“With Sharswood in his hands, her family is reclaiming its past.

“ ‘I just hope that somehow she’s looking down from heaven and finally cracking a beautiful smile,’ he said.”

More at the Post, here.