Ancestors of Leora Troper (great grandmother)

Baylah Miller
(b. bet. 1877-1883, Russia/Poland border area, d. bet. 1957 and 1960, England)

Occupation: Homemaker, Mother

Daughter of unknown parents. Sister of unknown siblings. Wife of Berel Miller. Mother of Henry Miller, Anne Miller (married Phillip Villa, no children), and Joe Miller (married Milly, had Evelyn who married Desmond Kerr and had Sarah Kerr and James Kerr). Judith Miller, her granddaughter, reports that Baylah and her husband Berel considered themselves Russian Jews, not Polish Jews. She was a distant cousin of her husband, Berel Miller. She was illiterate, and refused to learn English when they came to England. She felt that she didn't need to learn English because they lived in Whitechapel and "everyone" there spoke Yiddish.

Baylah Miller, June 16, 1957

Said Judith, her granddaughter: "Her world was limited to shopping and cooking and looking after the children. Heaven only knows what she did with her life after the kids grew up and left home. Seems to me she was always sitting and waiting for the kids to visit."

Judith continued: "One anecdote. My father told me he became very excited about what he was learning in school He would come home and tell his mother what he had been studying, and not only was she was not interested, she had not a clue what he was talking about. My father said he was enormously frustrated in his relationship with her because he could not talk to her about the things he was learning and excited about. She simply had no basis to understand it."

"She was very strictly orthodox, although she did not wear a Sheidel (wig)."

June 16, 1957, at the wedding of Judith Miller and Sam Troper

Left to right in back are, Janet Miller (Judith's sister), Henry Miller (Judith's father), Judith Miller, Sam Troper, Berel Miller (Judith's grandfather) and Janet Miller (Judith's mother), and in front, seated, Baylah Miller (Judith's grandmother)

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