During WW I moved to Girard, Kansas where they built and owned the Bluebird Theater. It was called an airdome theater. It was shut down because of the Flu epidemic. So they went bankrupt and Thomas went back to the coal mines.
John, Thomas’ brother, was a shooter in the coal mine--he set the explosives and was killed in an explosion. John had only been married about a week when he was killed.
Laura Mae Halsey was hired to watch the children after Ella’s death. Thomas and Laura were married within a couple of years.
In 1985 (or so) Paul LeRay Miller recalled his mother’s mother was part indian (not a full blood) and his mother’s father was the governor of an indian tribe in Texas. It was if the governor was a government position. The govenor himself was not indian.
Thomas W. was a circuit preacher in Arkansas when Paul LeRoy was born.
The family moved from Arkansas to Kansas to Oklahoma where Thomas worked in the oil fields. In Oklahoma they lived in Kaw City.
Paul remembers working in the Kaw City Grocery store owned by his uncle James. He remembers hauling sugar to an illegal still.
There was a ferry at Kaw City over the Arkansas river. The family bought a photography studio in Kaw City and went broke. They also owned a building in Kaw City. Kaw City was located near Ponca City. it was innundated by a reservoir created by daming the Arkansas River.
In 1941 when Paul LeRoy’s birth certificate was filed, Thomas was living in Web City, Oklahoma, Box 171
During the depression, Paul and George raised and sold watermelons at about a nickel apiece.
In about 1930 Paul went to California and picked oranges. He went there because his future wife was there with her parents and family. Perhaps before he went to California he worked in the oil fields in New Mexico digging trenches by hand to lay the pipelines. He either went out there with his brother Jack--or Jack was already out there. He later talked about how very hard the work of digging and laying the pipeline was. In California in Lindsey he worked in an olive factory. Later in life he always laughed about the salad olives being the ones he sweep up off the floor.
He came back to Oklahoma because the oil fields were just beginning to be developed in Oklahoma. He got a job with (company before Gulf Oil). Then Minnie’s family came back and they were married

Thomas W. Miller services Wednesday.
Funeral services for Thomas W. Miller, 81, of the Industrial Addition will be at 10 a. m. Wednesday in the chapel of the Hohnson Funeral Home. Burial will be in the Mount Olive cemetery, Pittsburg, Kansas.
Miller died at his home Monday following an extended illness.
He was born June 26, 1880 in Weatherford, Texas and was married to Laura May Halsey, June 17, 1918 in Joplin, Mo. The family has resided here for 16 years. Before his reitrement, Miller was an engineer in the gay department of the Gulf Oil Corporation.
He was an elder in the First Christian Chuch (sic) and was a Past Noble Grand of the I.O.O.F. lodge.
Miller is survived by his wife, Laura, of the home address; four sons, George T. Miller of Pawhuska, J. J. Miller of Odessa, Texas, Paul L. Miller of Pratt, Kansas and Thoma W. Miller of Torrence, Calif; a daughter Mrs. Gene Rockhold of Plainsvilles, Kans.; a brother Jim Miller of Houson; and three sisters, Mr. Willie Whalen of Lodi, Calif., Mrs. Mary Dimon of Wilmington, Calif;, and Mrs. Josephine Davis of Cleberg, TExas. There are 10 grandchildren and three great gandchildren.