Link: https://archive.org/details/fromdustbowltoco0000mill
What it is
D. Paul Miller’s own memoir: From the Dust Bowl to the Corn Fields: A Memoir (Evanston, Ill.: RPM Publishers, 2011), v + 378 pages, with photographs. It is a lending-library book on archive.org, so only short search excerpts could be read (2026-11-01). Borrowing it (free archive.org account) or a family copy would allow a full reading.
What the search excerpts show (2026-11-01)
- Ancestry line: he traces “Varnes to Gonser to Hummel to N. E. Miller to D.D. to D. Paul Miller”, and says the Varnes and Gonser families were from England.
- Grandma Varnes: a photograph captioned as “Grandma Varnes, mother of Elizabeth Gonser”, described as a full-blooded Cherokee; he writes that the family’s genealogical records make her the mother of Elizabeth Varnes, born “around 1800”, and that she married a white man. He adds that “another story” relates to her (text not reachable).
- Noah E. Miller bought a 2,000-acre ranch south of Protection, Kansas, in 1908.
These are family traditions recorded by D. Paul, not documents. Cherokee-grandmother stories are very common in American families and are rarely confirmed; treat both the England and the Cherokee claims as leads.
Still to do
- Borrow the book on archive.org (or find a family copy) and read the family-history chapters in full; photograph or note the pages on Varnes, Gonser, Hummel, the English story and Lake Thun task/human
Cited on
Record compiled 1 November 2026.
About this research
Supporting documentation is linked throughout. This project is an exercise in AI-assisted research and development, and I haven’t manually verified every link or conclusion. All transcriptions and translations of Swiss parish records were made with AI, and their accuracy should be treated accordingly.