Thomas Johnson Miles (1911 - 1993)

Born 15 Mar 1911 in Trimble, Kentucky, United States

Ancestors

Husband of Thelma Frances (Jacobs) Miles — married 12 Jul 1936 (to before 1946) in Washington, District of Columbia, United States

Husband of Adelaide Victoria (Chamberlin) Miles — married 15 Apr 1943 in San Francisco, California

Descendants

Died 30 Oct 1993 at age 82 in Spokane, Spokane Co., Washington

Biography

Thomas Johnson Miles was born in Trimble County Kentucky on March 15 1911 just about 9 months after Delia Ginn's marriage to Harry Allen Miles. His sister Lucy was born the following year. They had no more children. He didn't talk a lot about his youth but did say that he remembered picking dates with his father at a time when they had little to eat but what they were picking. In the 1920 census, when he was 9, the family were farming near Palmyra, a village in Trimble County. By 1930, when he was 19, the family was running a boarding house in Madison, Indiana. Jefferson County historical records report that the “Kentucky Boarding House was operated before 1922 by R. W. Ball. After Ball’s death (ca. 1922) it was bought by Harry Miles and continued as a boarding House until torn down in about 1960 in order to make a city parking lot." So, the family seems to have run a boarding house in Madison, Indiana from around the time Tom was 11. In fact it appears that Tom's sister, Lucy, met her future husband, Forrest Kyle, when he was a boarder with them. Young Thomas worked on the construction of the Milton-Madison Bridge as an underwater welder when he was 17 or 18. It is unclear whether he completed high school though it is known that he played on the high school basketball team. He joined the Navy soon after this and began training in the Medical Corps where he rose from enlisted to officer's rank over a fairly short period of time. The Navy became very much his identity for the rest of his life. He was a Pearl Harbor survivor and was on temporary Shore Patrol duty off his assigned ship on December 7, 1941 when the Japanese attacked. He married Thelma Jacobs in July of 1936 in Washington, D.C. Sons, Thomas and Kenneth were born in 1938 and 1940 respectively. The couple divorced in 1943. He met my mother, Adelaide Chamberlin, while he was on duty in San Francisco. My sister, Vicki, told me that Adelaide reported that Adelaide became pregnant, which led to the decision to divorce Thelma and marry my mother. She later had the first of several miscarriages. He and Adelaide were married in April, 1943. Son, Richard, was born in 1946. Daughter, Charlotte, was born in 1948. Their last daughter, Vicki was born in 1954. Their big adventure as a young family was an 18 month deployment in 1948 to Koror Island which is the state comprising the main commercial center of the Republic of Palau. It had been occupied by Japan up until the end of World War II. The U.S. Navy appears to have had a hospital there which serviced several of the islands. Adelaide wrote regularly and in some detail to her mother about their life there and those letters have been retained. As Thomas was in the Navy, the family moved every several years up until his retirement in about 1958 when they settled in Riverside, California and took a job as a pharmaceutical salesman. He retired from that job around 1968 and they moved to Spokane, Washington. He died Oct. 30, 1993 in Spokane Spokane County Washington, USA

Sources

• "United States Census, 1920", database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MHPJ-DL4 : 1 February 2021), Thomas J Miles in entry for Harry Miles, 1920.
• "United States Census, 1940," database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:K96B-KKY : 6 January 2021), Thomas Miles, Long Beach Judicial Township, Los Angeles, California, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 59-58, sheet 62A, line 12, family 312, Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940, NARA digital publication T627. Records of the Bureau of the Census, 1790 - 2007, RG 29. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2012, roll 371.
• "United States Census, 1930," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XH9S-V32 : accessed 2 October 2021), Thomas Miles in household of Harry Miles, Madison, Jefferson, Indiana, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) ED 5, sheet 2B, line 74, family 51, NARA microfilm publication T626 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2002), roll 595; FHL microfilm 2,340,330.
• Preserved family records and oral history