Lynne Miller was born July 1, 1885 at Monticello, Iowa, and had traveled to Kansas in a covered wagon with her parents, Isaac Alexander (Alex) and Cornelia (Nell) Miller and her seven brothers and sisters when she was less than a year old. At that time Kansas was being advertised as the "Garden of Eden" to get new settlers interested in moving west. Lloyd, Lynne's twin brother, was a sickly child, which compounded the hardships of the long, rough and dangerous trip. Lynne's twenty year-old sister, Talitha, had to assume most of the responsibility of caring for her so her mother would have the time she needed to care for Lloyd.

  As late as 1886, when the Miller family arrived in Kansas, a few Comanche, Pawnee and Kiowa Indians still roamed the prairies on spotted ponies, demanding food, and tobacco from travelers and settlers. They also took the settlers' dogs, leaving behind them a trail of frightened women and children. Even so, these were progressive times. The Pony Express had already been replaced by trains that delivered mail to towns and cities along their routes. The little town of Milan, a few miles west of them, that in 1875 had started with only a post office was fast becoming a thriving business place.

  The Millers lived in a house on the prairie on the Chisholm Trail southwest of Mayfield, Kansas. Lynne's father, Isaac, a wounded Civil War veteran, was a carpenter, and with building materials hauled from Wichita, built many of the first structures in that area including the first Post Office.

  The Milan Press, on January 23, 1896 had printed the following.

  "Mr. I. A. Miller, living seven miles southeast of town, has rented the property occupied by W. G. Schaberg and is moving his family into the same this week. Mr. Miller is an old merchant and intends to engage in the mercantile business here in the near future. We are pleased to see such estimable families taking up their residence among us and extend to Mr. Miller and family a cordial welcome to the business and social circles of our city."

  Tom was only twelve years old, living in Missouri, when this article was published. He would not see it until Lynne showed it to him when they were dating. Her father had saved the paper as a keepsake.

  Alex and Nell moved their family from the farm to Milan, where Alex and daughter Talitha purchased the Wichita Wholesale Grocery Company. They changed the name of the business to "Miller and Miller." At that time ladies outing shirts were advertised for thirty cents each and graham flour for fifteen cents a sack.

  In May of 1898, the Miller family moved from Milan to Wellington, where Lynne's father and twin brother, Lloyd, had resumed their more lucrative business as carpenters. Together, they built all the houses in the 1000 block of South Jefferson.

  After finishing her high school and normal school education in Wellington, Lynne had returned to the Milan area to teach in the elementary schools. Teachers were receiving about $52.00 a month salary in rural Kansas schools at that time. When Tom met her he couldn't imagine why this beautiful, talented young woman would leave Wellington to teach school in the Milan community. Surely, nothing short of providence had brought her into his quiet, lonely life. He was most grateful for that bit of providence.

  Tom and Lynne were married on May 6, 1908. Following the ceremony family and friends escorted them to the Wellington Santa Fe Train Depot, and rode to Milan, where friends met them with a horse and buggy to take them to their home, which was one block east of Main Street on the northside. (Later known as the Ed Bunker house.)

  It took Tom a good part of the summer to supply enough wood to keep them warm over the winter, and that first winter, when they first fired up the stove, they found friends had stuffed gunny sacks into their chimney, playing a trick on the newlyweds.

  At Tom's store, there was talk about a new car, called the Model T. being built by Henry Ford in Detroit, Michigan, but it would be roughly another ten years before this car could be expected to be seen with any regularity as far west as Milan, and many more before Tom and Lynne could afford to own one.

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