| Name | Robert Walton MILLER |
| Birth | 6 Aug 1881 |
| Death | 15 Aug 1962 |
| Father | George MILLER (1840-1897) |
| Mother | Elizabeth Catherine (Kate) WILEY (1846-1919) |
Excerpts from Old Times in the Faulkner Country by John B. Cullen (in collaboration with Floyd C. Watkins) (1961, Univ. of N. C. Press):
p. 12. "For almost a century a group of hunters from Oxford and Lafayette County have been going over into the Mississippi Delta for a few days' hunt every fall. I have gone on this hunt for many years. William Faulkner has hunted with us many times, and that is where I have known him best. In my life I have enjoyed nothing more than the annual hunts and my associations with old hunting friends...."
p. 13 "William Faulkner did not go with our camp when he was a young man. But he did hunt with Colonel Stone's camp even while he was just a boy, and he killed a deer when he was only fifteen or sixteen years old. Uncle Bud Miller, a member of our camp, also hunted with the Colonel. Lafayette County hunters have always known each other and exchanged yarns. Faulkner's hunting stories are based on our camp and Stone's camp, and he never saw many of the things he has written about. The stories of the old hunters are often the sources of his tales...."
p. 31. " Most of the men of our old hunting camp have not read many of William Faulkner's stories and novels. Our friendship with him is based on the kind of man we have found him to be in our association and camping with him. I doubt that he has any more loyal friends than we are. Faulkner has proved himself to be a good hunter and one of the fairest and most agreeable men we ever had in our camp...."
p.35. "Joe Butler was one of the finest shots I ever saw. Just at dark one night Joe shot a bear when it was too dark for him to see his sights. The bear ran into the canebrake, but from the blood Joe saw he felt confident that the bear could be found the next day. Early in the morning, Joe, Uncle Bud, old Doc Bramlett, and Sam Hickman (a Negro riding a mule) crossed a small bayou and found the dead bear a short distance out in the thicket. TheY hacked a path through the cane to get the bear out, but neither Sam nor his mule would come out in the canebrake. Both Uncle Bud and Joe were strong young men then; so they decided they could tote the bear out. They put the front end of the bear on Uncle Bud's back with its front legs over his shoulders. As they were making their way out of the thicket and were about to wade the bayou, Joe said, "Walton, I've done about everything else, but this is the first time I ever kissed a bear's ass.
Uncle Bud laughed so much that he let the bear fall in the bayou. At last Sam saw that the bear was dead, and he helped them get it out of the bayou and onto the mule--against its wishes.
Uncle Bud Miller, or Walton as the old timers called him, has been a farmer and a highway worker. He has gone on every one of our camping trips in the Mississippi bottoms for sixty straight years. A great hunter and woodsman, he has hunted longer and killed more big game than any of us. Uncle Bud always seems to be close at hand when help is needed...."
p.37 "Once Uncle Bud and Rig Red Bright, who is a big and strong as a bear, drove a T-model Ford up to a honky-tonk down in the Delta to get liquid refreshments needed in camp. After turning around, Uncle Bud stopped the motor. But then they heard shots in the building and saw men coming out through the doors and windows. Not wishing to become involved, they started to leave. Uncle Bud flooded the motor and the car would not start. Big Red got out to give it a push. By this time a man had come to the door of the honky-tonk, and he seemed to be shooting at everything in sight. Rig Red did not wish to be delayed. He picked up the back end of the car and began running down the road with it as a child would with a toy wheelbarrow. Every time the man shot after that, Red got faster. Uncle Bud said it was a good thing the man stopped shooting because Red was going so fast that he was afraid he would have lost control if Red had run any faster. Sad to say, they did not bring any refreshments back to our camp...."
p. 86 "Perhaps the Hellrod family provided a vague suggestion of the story of the rotting corpse which Faulkner tells in As I Lay Dying. All the members of this distinguished family had one major trait in common; they were born mad at the world and everyone in it, and they stayed that way as long as they lived. ... I first saw Al Hellrod when I was a little boy. At the time he was in a chain gang working on our county roads. Time after time in later years, he was arrested and fined for drunkeness, disturbance of the peace, assault and battery, and gambling and fighting with Negroes. To everyone's gratification, most of the time the Negroes won... Mag Hellrod was Al's sister... Mag had a grown son who was born without the public or neighbors knowing who his father was. The son, Ab, must have resembled his father, because he was not nearly so mean as a pure-blooded Hellrod; he was only ignorant, low-down, shiftless, and not worth a damn. Poor old Ab finally found a woman ignorant enough to live with him and call herself his wife. She was a big, lazy, dirty, goofy thing, but she had her good point. she had a great deal of affection for her flock of geese.
Ab died in Sumner, Mississippi, during very hot weather. In some way his wife sent word to old Mag that Ab was dead and that she had no way to get him buried. Old Mag went to Uncle Bud Miller for help, and of course he agreed to let his work go, take his car, go over to Sumner, and bring the body to Oxford for burial. When he arrived, Ab's body was still lying on the bed where he had died, and it stank so bad that Uncle Bud could not soberly stand it. So he bought a pint of whisky, drank it, bought another, and asked an undertaker to help him put the body in a coffin and load it into his car. Ab's wife said she could not leave to go to the funeral because she did not know who would take care of her "gooses."
"To hell with the gooses," Uncle Bud said; " we got to get this man buried. come on, let's go." But she stayed at home.
Uncle Bud arrived in Oxford at night. The body stank so bad that Uncle Bud and Claud Roach, the undertaker, dug the grave and buried Ab that night.
Uncle Bud has told this story several times in camp. If William Faulkner did not know this story and use it in As I Lay Dying, there are still some general similarities. The Bundrens, however, were much better people than the Hellrods."
From John Cullen's column, "The Great Yick." (date unknown):
Again this week I have the sad task of writing of the death ofone of the best friends Ihave known and enjoyed for a lifetime. Walton Miller, better known by his friends as Uncle Bud.
Everyone who knew Uncle Bud loved him as he was so kind and generous to all with whom he came in contact. During a long and useful life of hard toil on the farm and on our roads and highways, he was alwasys ready to share the fruit of his labor with anyone in need.
No man ever had a better neighbor than Uncle Bud Miller. For 62 years after working hard all the rest of the year, Uncle Bud has been taking off and going on a camping and hunting trip for a few days over in the Delta.
I have never known a better sportsman in the wood. He loved the big woods and all the wild creatures that lived in them. Like th virgin forest, the old hunters are passing out of existance here in Mississippi. Uncle bud was a link to the old days in the big woods and the simple life we lived more than 50 years ago. Much water has flowed under the bridge during that time. Many changes have taken place and many more will take place in the next half century. This had to be. it is, and was necessary. The old days and the old ways are gone, never to return.
Now Uncle Bud is gone. But having talked with him many times and knowing him as I did, I have faith in God's mercy and justice as he had and feel that he will hear these words, "well done, thy good and faithful servant. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall see God."
If I ever knew a peacemaker, Bud Miller was one. He lived in a house by the side of the road and was a friend to man."
From obituary in the Oxford Eagle, Thursday, 23 Aug 1962
Another of William Faulkner's hunting buddies, Robert Walton "Uncle Bud" Miller, has gone to find better hunting ground. Final rites for the old timer were held Thursday at the College Hill Presbyterian Church. The Rev. J. M. Looney officiated.
"Uncle Bud," as he was called by the scores who knew him, shared the limelight with John Cullen a little more than a month ago when their hunting partner, Faulkner, died.
He said he and Faulkner were on the same hunting expeditions five or six times, but the hunting days in Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha or Jefferson County are over for the men. They both lie in St. Peter's Cemetery.
"Uncle Bud" had recently celebrated his 81st birthday, Aug. 6. He was a native of Lafayette County and knew everyone who called himself a part of the county.
A former employee of the State Highway Department, "Uncle Bud" was the son of George and Kate Wiley Miller. He was the last of a family of 10 children.
He had been in bad health for a number of years and had been at Bramlett Hospital for two weeks. He was a member of the College Hill Presbyterian Church.
| 1 | Elzora WINTERS |
| Divorce |