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Lucas Miller: a photograph, a farm and a marker

Lucas Miller stands in uniform beneath a broad-brimmed hat in a family photograph. Its date and location are unknown. His records place him at Chataignier, Louisiana, before and after a short period of Army service.

Lucas Miller
Lucas Miller
Source: owner upload
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Born at Chataignier, 1896: the 1918 draft card

Lucas gave Chataignier, Louisiana, as both his birthplace and his home when he registered for the draft on June 5, 1918. He said he had been born on September 8, 1896. A likely earlier appearance is the three-year-old boy indexed as Laucus or Lancus Miller in the 1900 census, living with Camile and Marthe Miller and a younger boy, Francois.

The 1900 Camile and Marthe Miller household, including a three-year-old boy indexed as Laucus or Lancus, born September 1896. Likely Lucas; ED 65, sheet 39, lines 24–27.
The 1900 Camile and Marthe Miller household, including a three-year-old boy indexed as Laucus or Lancus, born September 1896. Likely Lucas; ED 65, sheet 39, lines 24–27. 1900
Source: U.S. Census Bureau; NARA T623, roll581; Ancestry collection7602, record6057816.
How it is shown: Complete, unchanged original; no crop or retouch.
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The month and year of birth match Lucas's later registration. His mother's maiden name is given as Marthe Foret in a 1919 marriage index; a Find a Grave memorial gives Paret. Which spelling is right is not known.

At twenty-one, Lucas named Camile Miller as both employer and nearest relative. His signature appears at the foot of the registration card.

Lucas Miller’s draft registration, 5 June 1918, with both sides of the card. He reported birth at Chataignier on 8 September 1896 and named Camile Miller as employer and nearest relative.
Lucas Miller’s draft registration, 5 June 1918, with both sides of the card. He reported birth at Chataignier on 8 September 1896 and named Camile Miller as employer and nearest relative. 1918
Source: U.S. Selective Service System; NARA M1509; Ancestry collection6482, record27852923.
How it is shown: Complete, unchanged original; no crop or retouch.
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Louisiana's World War I service record names his company: Private, Company G, 84th Infantry, a regiment organized that September at Camp Beauregard as part of the 17th Division. He was inducted at Ville Platte on September 4, 1918, recorded no wounds, and was "honorably discharged on demobilization" on February 12, 1919. The card records "served overseas: None." The Army's history of the division agrees: the 17th trained at Camp Beauregard throughout its existence and records no movement overseas.

Louisiana World War I service record of Lucas Miller, Army no. 1,617,037, Ville Platte, Evangeline Parish: born Chataignier, La., 8 September 1896; inducted 4 September 1918; Co. G, 84th Infantry; private; discharged 12 February 1919, 0 percent disabled.
Louisiana World War I service record of Lucas Miller, Army no. 1,617,037, Ville Platte, Evangeline Parish: born Chataignier, La., 8 September 1896; inducted 4 September 1918; Co. G, 84th Infantry; private; discharged 12 February 1919, 0 percent disabled. 1918
Source: Louisiana World War I Service Records, 1917-1920, image 136 of 230; FamilySearch
How it is shown: Cropped to his own entry (the crop already held in the registry); no retouch.
Keep in mind: What the page says: Confirmed from the saved image: surname Miller, Christian name Lucas, army no. 1,617,037, Evangeline Parish, Ville Platte, enlisted or inducted Sept 4/18, born Chataignier, La., Sept 8/96, Co G 84 Inf, grade Pvt, wounds none, honorably discharged on demobilization Feb 12/19, 0% disabled. Whether this is our person: Likely, not Confirmed, that this Lucas Miller is the tree's Lucas Miller (1896-1929); name, parish and birth year agree, but the card gives no parents or wife, and the research treats the tie as an inference.
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Marriage to Dea and the Chataignier farm

By the 1920 census, Lucas and Dea were married and renting a home at Chataignier, where Lucas was a self-employed farmer.

Lucas and Dea Miller in the 1920 census of Chataignier. Lucas is listed as a farmer working on his own account; their home was rented. ED 64, sheet 16B, lines 73–74.
Lucas and Dea Miller in the 1920 census of Chataignier. Lucas is listed as a farmer working on his own account; their home was rented. ED 64, sheet 16B, lines 73–74. 1920
Source: U.S. Census Bureau; NARA T625, roll 612; Ancestry collection 6061, record 74366261.
How it is shown: Complete, unchanged original; no crop or retouch.
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A family photograph posted to Find a Grave shows them outdoors together; its contributor dates it to 1920 and names no occasion.

Lucas Miller and Dea Aucoin, captioned 1920. Identification and date are attributed to the contributor. Added by Murphy Miller, crediting Connie Miller photo; photographer unknown.
Lucas Miller and Dea Aucoin, captioned 1920. Identification and date are attributed to the contributor. Added by Murphy Miller, crediting Connie Miller photo; photographer unknown. 1920
Source: Murphy Miller; caption credits Connie Miller photo.
How it is shown: Complete, unchanged original; no crop or retouch.
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Evidence note: Sources disagree on the marriage date: a family tree gives 1911, a community tree November 1919, and a FamilySearch index December 17, 1919. The community tree quotes "license not returned." The FamilySearch index also names both sets of parents: Lucas's as Camille Miller and Marthe Foret, Dea's as Lastie Aucoin and Margurite Ardoin. The original register has not been examined.

Evangeline Parish, Louisiana, marriage licence and bond of Lucas Miller and Dea Aucoin, 17 December 1919 (licence 586). The licence and bond are dated; the ceremony date and return are blank on the original.
Evangeline Parish, Louisiana, marriage licence and bond of Lucas Miller and Dea Aucoin, 17 December 1919 (licence 586). The licence and bond are dated; the ceremony date and return are blank on the original. 17 December 1919 · register p. 556 (facing p. 557), licence 586; image 243 of 731
Source: Evangeline Parish Clerk of Court, via FamilySearch (Louisiana Parish Marriages, collection 1807364).
How it is shown: Complete page as supplied; no crop, no retouch, no search highlight.
Keep in mind: Confirmed that the licence and bond are dated 17 December 1919; the ceremony and return are blank, so no ceremony date is established. The index age for Dea (25) and her parents' names (Lastie Aucoin, Margurite Ardoin; spelling kept) are as the register gives them.
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Lucas was 26 when Rellim James Miller was born on November 15, 1922. The birth certificate names Lucas and Dea Aucoin and describes Lucas as a farmer at Chataignier. A later Social Security entry also identifies them as the parents of Ralph Waldo Miller. Luther Calvin Miller was born on January 29, 1929, nearly eleven months before his father died.

Birth certificate of Rellim James Miller, born 15 November 1922, naming Lucas Miller and Dea Aucoin as parents. Lucas is recorded as a farmer at Chataignier. His stated age differs from the birth date on his draft card.
Birth certificate of Rellim James Miller, born 15 November 1922, naming Lucas Miller and Dea Aucoin as parents. Lucas is recorded as a farmer at Chataignier. His stated age differs from the birth date on his draft card. 1922
Source: Louisiana State Archives, State Birth Records1911–1922; Ancestry2025, collection63106, father record105031375.
How it is shown: Complete, unchanged original; no crop or retouch.
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By April 1930, four months after Lucas's death, the census found Dea a widow in her brother Rene Aucoin's household at Chataignier, with all three sons under eight (Rellim, 7; Ralph, 3; Luther, 1) in a home the household owned. Rellim had just turned seven when his father died.

1930 U.S. census, Evangeline Parish, Louisiana, Police Jury Ward 1, ED 20-5, sheet 3B, enumerated 4 April 1930: Dea Miller, 35, widowed, with her sons Rellim J. (7), Ralph W. (3) and Luther C. (1 and 3/12), in the household of her brother Rene Aucoin.
1930 U.S. census, Evangeline Parish, Louisiana, Police Jury Ward 1, ED 20-5, sheet 3B, enumerated 4 April 1930: Dea Miller, 35, widowed, with her sons Rellim J. (7), Ralph W. (3) and Luther C. (1 and 3/12), in the household of her brother Rene Aucoin. 1930
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 1930 census (Evangeline Parish), via Ancestry (FHL film 2340528)
How it is shown: Complete page as held in the registry; no crop, no retouch.
Keep in mind: What the page says: dwelling and family 70, lines 54-58: Aucoin, Rene, head, 49, farm manager; Miller, Dea, 'sister-H' (as read), 35, widowed; Rellim J., son, 7; Ralph W., son, 3; Luther C., son, 1 and 3/12; the line above is Elmire Aucoin, head of dwelling 69, 88, widowed. Whether these are our people: Likely. The sons' names and ages fit the tree's James Rellim, Ralph Waldo and Luther Calvin Miller (b. 1922, 1926, 1929) and Dea fits Dea Aucoin Miller; all are deceased. The registry tags only Lucas Miller (d. 1929), who is not on this page; the household is his widow and children, so the tag is by family, not by name, and
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The 1924 drainage-district petition

One local newspaper item may show him acting with his neighbors. On November 1, 1924, The Weekly Gazette printed a petition from property owners in and near Chataignier seeking creation of a drainage district. Lucas Miller appears among the names, immediately followed by Francois Miller. An automatic index joined the two names as "Lucas Francois Miller," but the printed page lists them separately. The name and place make him probably this Lucas.

'Petition,' Police Jury Proceedings, The Weekly Gazette, 1 Nov 1924, p. 8: neighborhood property owners near Chataignier, La. petition to create the Chataignier Drainage District, signed by, among roughly 45 names, both Lucas Miller and Francois Miller.
'Petition,' Police Jury Proceedings, The Weekly Gazette, 1 Nov 1924, p. 8: neighborhood property owners near Chataignier, La. petition to create the Chataignier Drainage District, signed by, among roughly 45 names, both Lucas Miller and Francois Miller. 1924
Source: The Weekly Gazette, via Newspapers.com.
How it is shown: Crop of an already-held newspaper page to the relevant item; no retouch. Lucas Miller and Francois Miller are separate names on this petition; the petition's Lucas is a possible match to this family's Lucas Miller, not uniquely identified.
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On January 18, 1930, a month after his death, the same paper printed a road petition by Chataignier landowners. It names "Mrs. Lucas Miller" as holding land along the proposed route and among the petition's signers, so Dea, under her husband's name, was listed among the landowners that winter.

Ville Platte Gazette (Ville Platte, La.), 18 Jan 1930, p. 5: Police Jury proceedings, petition for a public road signed by property owners including Mrs. Lucas Miller.
Ville Platte Gazette (Ville Platte, La.), 18 Jan 1930, p. 5: Police Jury proceedings, petition for a public road signed by property owners including Mrs. Lucas Miller. 18 Jan 1930 · p. 5
Source: Ville Platte Gazette, via Newspapers.com.
How it is shown: Complete page as supplied; no crop, no retouch, no search highlight.
Keep in mind: Confirmed that 'Mrs. Lucas Miller' signed and owned land at Chataignier a month after Lucas Miller's death; read here as Dea Aucoin Miller. The list of signers continues in the next column.
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Lucas's death in 1929 and his marker

Lucas died on December 19, 1929, aged thirty-three. The state archives' index records his death twice, in the same early volume, eight pages apart; neither entry gives a cause, and the volume otherwise holds mostly earlier years. In August 1947, Mrs. Edese Hollier (Dea, by then using her second husband's name) applied for a government headstone. The headstone application gives his unit and also carries a second, struck-through line placing him in a camp development battalion; nothing in the records says why. The form names the cemetery "Chatagnier Catholic Cemetery." A priest, whose signature reads as Rev. Julien Van Essen, certified that the grave was then unmarked. The marker was ordered that October and shipped to her at Ville Platte on November 3, 1947, nearly eighteen years after Lucas died.

Headstone application for Lucas Miller, 6 August 1947. Mrs. Edese Hollier identified herself as his wife, now remarried. The form records his Army service and a November 1947 shipment.
Headstone application for Lucas Miller, 6 August 1947. Mrs. Edese Hollier identified herself as his wife, now remarried. The form records his Army service and a November 1947 shipment. 1947
Source: Office of the Quartermaster General; NARA RG92, NAID596118; Ancestry collection2375, record74661.
How it is shown: Complete, unchanged original; no crop or retouch.
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Reverse of Lucas Miller’s 1947 headstone application, with cemetery certification. The certifier’s surname remains uncertain.
Reverse of Lucas Miller’s 1947 headstone application, with cemetery certification. The certifier’s surname remains uncertain. 1947
Source: Office of the Quartermaster General; NARA RG92; Ancestry.
How it is shown: Complete, unchanged original; no crop or retouch.
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Lucas Miller’s grave cross and flat military marker at Mount Carmel Cemetery, Chataignier. Photograph added by Charles T. Baggett on 26 February 2012.
Lucas Miller’s grave cross and flat military marker at Mount Carmel Cemetery, Chataignier. Photograph added by Charles T. Baggett on 26 February 2012. 2012
Source: Charles T. Baggett.
How it is shown: Complete, unchanged original; no crop or retouch.
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Dea had remarried in June 1936, to Edese Hollier, a Ville Platte farm-equipment dealer; a later succession case over his estate states the marriage lasted until his death in 1961 and that they had no children together. Hollier had a daughter, Dorothy, from his first marriage, to Mercedes Couvillon, who died in 1935. Dorothy was Dea's stepdaughter, not Lucas's. Lucas and Dea's children were their three sons.

Dea died in 1983. Her obituary under the name Mrs. Dea Hollier identifies her as the former Dea Aucoin and names James, Luther and Ralph Miller among her children; it does not name Lucas.

'Mrs. Dea Hollier,' The Ville Platte Gazette, 26 May 1983: obituary for Dea (Aucoin) Hollier, 88, of Ville Platte, naming sons James, Luther and Ralph Miller.
'Mrs. Dea Hollier,' The Ville Platte Gazette, 26 May 1983: obituary for Dea (Aucoin) Hollier, 88, of Ville Platte, naming sons James, Luther and Ralph Miller. 1983
Source: The Ville Platte Gazette, via Newspapers.com.
How it is shown: Crop of an already-held newspaper page to the relevant obituary; no retouch. Does not name Lucas Miller directly; retained as family-context evidence for the Miller line.
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Rellim James Miller served in the Navy during the Second World War; Luther Calvin Miller served in the Army during the Korean War.

About the evidence

The photographs are attributed family and memorial images. One Find a Grave caption dates the uniform photograph to 1944, which cannot be right, since he died in 1929. His draft card records birth on September 8, 1896, while some household records give inconsistent ages. No source gives his cause of death.

Sources

Records and documents in this story

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