MILLER, Georgianna “Ann” Hibbs

Local and Personal.

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In the cyclone at Kirksville, Missouri last week, which killed nearly fifty people and injured many more, Mrs. Georgianna Miller, formerly of this county, was among the killed. She was the grandmother of Mrs. H. C. Barnett and was in her ninety-seventh year. While a resident of this county her home was in Nineveh township. She went to Missouri with her son, J. T. Miller, about thirty-five years ago.

The Franklin Democrat, Friday, May 19, 1899,
Volume XXXIX Number 45, page 3 column 2–3

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THE KIRKSVILLE CYCLONE.

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Letter From One Who Experienced it.

Dr. Irwin Hibbs, of Nineveh, has furnished us a letter from his half-brother, whose mother was killed in the recent Kirksville, Mo. cyclone. It was received too late last week for publication. The letter is as follows:

KIRKSVILLE, MO. May 1, ’99

We have had a terrible cyclone of which you have no doubt learned, passing through the city of Kirksville in its destructive force destroying our beautiful and pleasant home and all of its contents. Our dear mother, myself and wife were all of the persons who were in the house at the time. My wife and I are considerably bruised.

With all the loss none is so great as the loss of our dear mother. She was strong and healthy all the winter and seemingly enjoyed life and health better than ever in her long stay on earth, which only lacked three days of ninety-seven years, as she was born May 1st, 1802.

I realize the terrible ordeal which I have just passed through, and with all my wounds at the time, by an almost superhuman effort, I was enabled to extricate myself from the debris by which I was struck down and to run some fifty yards and was the first to gather my mother in my arms and close to my breast. In a moment she re­covered sufficient to speak my name and realize that she was in my humble care. Her heart soon failed to beat, and she passed away without a struggle. So in this you readily see that I can but feel a deep sympathy for all immediate relations and her host of personal friends in not being so highly favored as myself. May we not grieve but ren­der praise to and adore Him who ruleth all things well.

The cyclone in its fury entered the city at the south, and passed just east of the state normal, leaving the beautiful and imposing structure of the great Col­umbian school of osteopathy and sur­gery on the east unharmed. It passed out at the northeast part of the city. In the escape of this institution and its corps of skilled and fully equipped faculty in surgery, only those of us bruised and wounded in every con­ceivable form can fully appreciate their wonderful work of quick relief, enabling us to start on the road to a speedy recovery. Although we fully appreciate the generosity of other cities in dispatching surgeons to our relief, the Columbian institution with other surgeons of the city as auxiliaries, could perhaps have handled the whole situ­ation. Suffer no uneasiness about us. We are in the hands of friends and the best people on earth; as a people of a beautiful city, to assist the world in evolution to a higher civilization. We have left the only institution of its kind on earth, the Columbian school of oste­opathy, medicine and surgery, with many other institutions as a blessing to humanity.

JAS. T. MILLER.     

Link to Georgianna “Ann” Hibbs Miller’s grave

Notes: Indiana State Library Genealogy Database; Marriages through 1850 records that George Washington Miller married Ann Hibbs 1 Nov 1832 in Bartholomew County, Indiana

The 1850 US Federal Census for Nineveh, Johnson County, Indiana records fifty-five-year-old, Kentucky-born farmer George Miller, his forty-eight-year-old, Maryland-born wife Ann Miller, their Indiana-born children, seventeen-year-old twins, William R. and James T., thirteen-year-old Elizabeth E. ten-year-old George E. and six-year-old Mary J., and Ann’s twenty-two-year-old, Kentucky-born son by her previous marriage to a Mr. Hibbs, Irvan [sic] Hibbs.

Submitted by Mark McCrady, Cathea Curry and Lois Johnson